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Gold and Silver Mining as a Geographic 
Factor in the Development of 
j£ the United States 



A THESIS 

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School 
of Cornell University for the degree of 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

GEORGE DAVID HUBBARD 



Gold and Silver Mining as a Geographic 

Factor in the Development of 

the United States 



A THESIS 

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School 
of Cornell University for the degree of 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

GEORGE DAVID HUBBARD 



REPRINTED FROM 

Scott. Geog. Mag., Vol. XXVII (1911), pp. 417-26 ; 470- 74. 

Bull. Phil. Geog. Soc, Vol. IX (1911), pp. 1-22. 

Bull. Ainer. Geog. Soc., Vol. XLII (19 10), pp. 594-602. 

Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc., Vol. XLIV (1912), pp. 97-112. 

Scott. Geog. Mag., Vol. XXVI (19 10), pp. 449-466. 

Bull. Phil. Geog. Soc, Vol. X (1912), pp.\36-5o. 

Jour. Geog., Vol. X (1912), pp. 316-319. 






Cornell Vri*- U*t*t* 



Reprinted from The Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. xxvii., August 1911. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES 
AS RESPONSES TO GEOGRAPHIC CONDITIONS. 1 

By George D. Hubbard, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A. 

Gold and silver receive different methods of treatment varying with 
their occurrence and association. All through the story of their mining 

1 This paper is a portion of a thesis presented as a part of the requirement for the Ph.D. 
degree in Geography at Cornell University. See this Magazine, 1910, pp. 449-466 ; Bull. 
Amer. Geog. Soc. 1910, pp. 594-602, and a later number; and Bull. Gcog. Soc. Phil. 1911, 
pp. 1-22, for other parts. Special thanks are given to Professors R. S. Tarr, W. F. 
Willcox, and H. Ries of Cornell for criticism and suggestion throughout the whole work. 



418 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

in the West, the responses and adaptations to conditions have brought 
changes in methods of mining and handling, and have developed 
mechanical and technical skill and inventive genius. 

Gold. 

Placers. — In most localities in the Western U.S.A. and Alaska, this 
metal was first discovered in gravels and sands in or near stream-beds 
whither the streams had carried it from nearer their head -waters. 
There they found it in fragments formed by the disintegration of 
country rock containing gold in veins and ore bodies. As the rock 
was carried down stream it was sorted, and much of the lighter and 
more destructible fragments was swept entirely away, while what 
remained contained most of the gold. The waste left along the stream- 
bed was made up of rounded gravel, sand, and the fine pieces of gold, 
and was deposited more or less uniformly. Such auriferous deposits 
are called placers, and were very rich in the gulches of the Sierras and 
common all through the mountains. Because of the ease of detecting 
the metal in them they were the first forms of gold to attract 
attention. The process of sorting out barren rock-waste and concen- 
trating the gold in a much smaller quantity of earth has been of 
inestimable value to man. He takes up the work where Nature left 
off, and by further concentration eliminates all but the gold. 

The simplest and cheapest method of mining placer gold is that of 
washing the auriferous gravels in a pan or even with a shovel or in a 
short sluice, with water to remove the rock fragments and thus to 
separate the gold, which, by virtue of its greater specific gravity, 
remains in the pan or behind cleats on the bottom of the sluice. This 
method was used because it was simple and effective in the rich, 
unconsolidated placers, and because its apparatus was at hand or quickly 
made. Time in those days was gold. Its use continued because it 
was so effective in the high-grade gravels, and because complicated 
apparatus was not obtainable and was no more effective. Apparatus 
that would get the most gold in the shortest time and in the easiest 
way was the kind used. Bancroft 1 explains that these methods 
continued in California because the abundance and richness of the 
deposits lasted, and because miners were relatively few. The same 
law has held in many placer deposits outside of that State. Owing to 
these factors, when the amount of gold obtained in one gulch became 
too small, it was cheapest to move to a new, unoccupied one and 
continue the use of the simple machine. But because the continuous 
influx of men, attracted by the gold and the opportunities that gold- 
mining presented, so increased the competition ; and because the crude 
but rapid mining so soon compassed the richest beds, less remunerative 
gravels had to be worked, and improved methods devised to recover 
more perfectly, and at a single washing, the valuable contents of the 
earth. The above simple processes, used at first, required little or no 



1 Bancroft, H. H., Hist, of Calif ., vol. vi. p. 409. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 419 

co-operation, and hence tended to develop independence of work and 
thought. 

The less remunerative gravels were simply bars, or deserted stream- 
beds, which, owing to less favourable conditions for deposition, contained 
a lower percentage of gold ; or else they were deeper down and 
required more labour and expense for the same return. Under the 
impulse of these new conditions, and in order to cheapen the process, 
a long sluice with more cleats to catch the gold, called a long-torn, 
also a hand rocker similar to an old-fashioned child's cradle with cleats 
across the bottom, were used. These machines, called for by the 
poorer gravels, required two bo four men to work in a squad, but made 
it possible for them to produce about the same values as if working 
each for himself in better gravels. Royce 1 shows that the long-torn 
or long sluice mining meant increased responsibilities of many sorts, 
and so in the end made for good order. It also had a part in 
developing that social compact whose factors were called " pards," 
because of their partnership work with the machine. Then as the 
business was extended, longer board sluices, and finally, because the 
boards wore out too fast, long rock-floored ditches came into use, 
requiring a larger squad, and hence demanding a larger company of 
profit-sharers or the employment of wage-earners. 

More water was needed with these larger machines used in working 
lower-grade gravels. When it was near, little expense arose even in 
the use of the more improved methods ; but if the water-supply was 
insufficient or not permanent, capital and more costly works were 
necessary. In the first place, ditches or flumes were made to lead the 
water from external sources to points where it was needed. In the second, 
as much as possible had to be made of the water that was near, and it 
had to be so used that it could not destroy the works after storms. 
This co-operation and the more permanent nature of the plant for water 
conveyance, gave more permanence to camps, just as have river-bed 
mining and hydraulicking in other places. 2 

From the washing of the sand in marginal sand-bars to that of the 
gravel of the stream-bed was only a step. In order to reach the latter, 
the water had to be crowded off by a wing dam and a portion of 
the bed exposed. Then to get the entire river bottom the whole 
stream was diverted, and, to avoid the expense of dam construction, 
dredging with simple machines was introduced from New Zealand, 
where it had originated 3 and found rather general use. The dredging 
machinery, placed on a boat, raised the gravels from the bottom, 
washed them, recovering the gold, and returned them either to the 
water or to the land in the rear of the machine. A dredge boat was 
often launched in the water in an artificial pool made by excavating a 
hole in the bed of river alluvium, and the boat and pool advanced 
by digging gravel out in front and piling it in behind the machine. 

1 Royce, Josiah, California ; in Amer. Commonwealth Series, 1886, p. 310. 

2 Royce, loc. cit., p. 312. 

3 Twelfth Census (1900), Alines and Quarries: Gold and Silver, p. 573. 



420 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

Owing to ease of handling the gravel, this method was capable of 
working deposits of very low grade. 

Back from the stream, and usually a little above, occurred the 
bench gravels ; and when these were found to contain ore, specially 
adapted methods arose to win it from them. Water was led out of 
the stream above the benches by a wing dam and conducted to the 
place in a ditch with less fall than had the stream. Then the washing 
began in rockers and long-toms. The workmen soon learned where 
to find the richest streaks in these benches or terraces and finally 
tunnelled for them. In Alaska, where the benches are sometimes of 
glacial origin, the richest streaks are differently distributed, 1 and 
required different treatment. Owing to climatic conditions, the gravels 
here are frozen most of the year, and must be thawed to be washed. 
At first they were thawed by building fires on them, but now this is 
usually done by driving pipes into them and then forcing in steam. 
Shafts and horizontal tunnels along rich leads are thus made. 2 Because 
these deposits are in a land of continuous frost, tunnels need no timber- 
ing, and shafts no pumps. 

From stream gravels to beach sands was a short step, and in 
California many devices for working the latter have been tried and 
left to decay. 3 The difficulties are lack of fall for sluices, and, some- 
times, lack of water. In California the Oregon torn, a short sluice, 
has been adopted. At Nome lack of fall declared against all sluices, 
and the surf against dredging. Rockers were used almost exclusively. 

Still another set of conditions, the deposits of arid lands, has given 
rise to the process known as dry-washing or dry-blowing. In New 
Mexico 4 many unsuccessful attempts to utilise the wind have been 
made ; and now a screen set obliquely and ribbed with riffles is 
supplied with placer material, and air is blown through the screen 
from behind to remove fine dirt. Coarse material is swept off with 
the hand, while the gold collects above the riffles. Owing to the 
absence of water for ordinary washing, many varieties of dry-blowing 
have been used in Southern California, 5 Northern Mexico, 6 and in 
Australia, 7 some of which were borrowed from the natives and some 
devised by the foreign miners ; but all that were successful were adjusted 
to the highly specialised conditions of no water, dry dirt, suitable 
winds, and cheap labour. 

All the above processes were used because of a special mode of 
occurrence of the gold — in loose, easily worked placers — and were of 
service only in such deposits. All were adapted to the special conditions 



i Kemp, J. F., Ore Deposits, 1900, p. 393. U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 15, pp. 52, 
54 ; Mines and Minerals, 1900, p. 492. 

2 U.S.G.S. Bull. 225, 52-53. 

3 Scientific American Supplement, 1900, p. 20,381. 

4 Mines and Minerals, 1899, pp. 397-8. 

5 Bowie, A. J. , Hydraulic Mining in California, p. 79. 

6 Eng. and Min. Journ. (1897), vol. lxiii. pp. 257-8. 

7 Am. Inst. Min. Eng. Trans. 1898, vol. xxviii. p. 490 f. ; also Eng. and Min. Journ. 
vol. lxv. (1899), p. 37. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 421 

in which the gold was found. Some had been used, in principle at least, 
in the foreign countries from whence many of the miners had come ; but 
their introduction and improvement in the West was a direct response 
to the influence of the geographic conditions in which the gold occurred, 
and under which the men were obliged to work. 

Amalgamation. — A modification of several of the above methods 
greatly raised their efficiency. Mercury had been discovered in California 
five years prior to the gold discoveries, 1 so that its use was possible as 
soon as conditions made it necessary ; and now small quantities were put 
behind the riffles in the sluices to form an amalgam with the gold and 
thus recover many minute fragments formerly lost. Amalgamation 
processes had been used in Potosi, South America, near where mercury 
was mined, since 1571 ; also to some extent in Mexico, although the 
long distance to its source, Huancavelica or Spain, was almost prohibitive. 
By taking advantage of the presence of mercury, an advantage due to 
the geographic distribution of mercury, the South American miners and, 
later, those of California greatly increased their output and cheapened 
their processes. In the absence of mercury Mexico must have mined in 
the old wasteful way or have paid heavily for imported mercury. 

Hydraulicking . — Men continued to come into the gulches and 
valleys, and the gravels and sands were becoming exhausted ; hence 
prospectors and miners pushed farther up the streams to find new or 
better deposits, and, in 1851, discovered the fossil stream-beds high up 
on table mountains. The gravels and sands of these beds were stream- 
laid ages ago, and then overlaid with lava. Subsequent erosion had cut 
these deposits — lava, gravel, and sand — in two and removed a part of 
the gold-bearing beds, and after sorting and rewashing the gravels, and 
concentrating the gold, transferred them to the present valley floors. The 
remaining portions were rich and extensive, but could not be worked in 
the ordinary ways. The lava cover prevented beginning at the top. 
Most of the gold was at the bottom of the channels, and to get it required 
either moving the entire filling, or the construction of tunnels and the 
removal of the pay gravel. Tunnelling was expensive because continuous 
timbering was necessary. Then no water was near for washing. To 
develop these supplies of gold required capital and labour, and here began 
the first extensive systematic hired mining. 2 An adaptation of the long- 
torn sluicing with men shovelling gravel into the feed boxes was the initial 
device. In 1852, a man desirous of economising labour made a raw- 
hide hose and with water under head washed gravel into his sluice. His 
neighbours followed, and then improved by using first canvas hose, stove 
pipe, sheet-iron, and then heavy wrought-iron flumes, thirty inches in 
diameter and furnished with an elaborate nozzle. Some of these flumes were 
thousands of feet long, 3 and being connected with ditches or tunnels 10-100 
miles long, 4 led water in large quantities from some higher level, often 
from beyond a divide, down to the partially cemented gravels with such 



i Hubbard, G. D., Bull. Geog. Soc. Phil. (1911), vol. ix. p. 7. 

2 Bowie, A. J., Hydraulic Mining in California (1885), p. 48. 

3 Bowie, A. J., loc. cit. p. 49 f. 4 Eissler, Manuel, Metallurgy of Gold (1900), p. 51. 



422 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

force as to tear them down and break them to pieces and then wash them 
into long sluices. Here their gold contents were sorted and caught in 
mercury behind the riffles. Sometimes the gravel was so firmly cemented 
that dynamite was exploded to aid the water in breaking it down. This 
new, elaborate process, called hydraulicking, could not be used success- 
fully in other kinds of deposits, but was ultimately closely adapted to the 
requirements of these ancient gravels. Thus the cost of handling the 
gravel was reduced from dollars per cubic yard in the rockers of 1848 
and 1849, first to $.35 in the long sluices, and then to half a cent in the 
hydraulicking process. Those who had resisted the temptation to spend 
all as fast as it was acquired usually became the capitalists in this new 
form of co-operation, while those who had wasted all, or who had been 
the victims of hard luck, became the labourers or withdrew to other 
occupations. 1 

Placers of Sierras and Rockies Contrasted. — Much the larger proportion of 
the placer-mining in the West per unit area has been in California. The 
Cretaceous rocks of the Sierras with their ledges of free milling ores, 
disintegrated into good placers with gold of a high degree of purity ; but 
the propylitic rocks of the Eockies with their complex associations have 
not furnished so much placer gold nor such good quality as that in 
California. This geographic distribution of placers and their parent rock 
has had a beneficent influence on the development of the mining industry 
of the West. The native gold or gold in simple associations was found 
first, and where it could be easily worked, hence the industry flourished 
from the start. Had the two kinds of bed-rock deposits exchanged 
places, it would not have been so easy to find the first placers ; and if 
the Eastern placers had been found first, they would hardly have been 
able to furnish capital for the later development of veins and lodes. 
And had the Sierra kind occurred in Western Colorado and Idaho, many 
of the hardships incident to reaching and developing the region would 
have been increased. Neither men nor provisions could have reached 
the place by sea. The long land journey from the East would remain, 
although much shortened, but there would have been added to the sea 
route a long difficult land route, from the coast far inland. 

Vein Mining. — As gravels became exhausted, prospectors, followed 
by miners, pushed on up the ravines and discovered the quartz veins 
from which the gravel had come ; and then there arose a different kind 
of mining. In these auriferous ledges as found in most of the Western 
States and even in the Southern Appalachians, the gold was intimately 
associated with other minerals, and the whole mass had to be broken out 
of the country rock and crushed before the precious metal could really 
be claimed. This required time, expensive machinery, mechanical skill, 
and withal a deal of adjustment to the conditions in order to operate the 
mines successfully. But, as shown above, capital was not wanting, and 
experiments began. By a normal process of selection a method of mining 
and reduction was perfected, but not until many fortunes had become 
exhausted and companies dissolved. Beside the exhaustion of the richer 



1 Bancroft, H. H., Hist, of Calif., vol. vi. pp. 416, 418. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 423 

placers, another factor aided in the development of the quartz-mining. 
Hydraulic mining, discussed above, had been entered into by multitudes. 
By 1858, in California alone, six thousand miles of water-ditches had 
been built. About this time the waste from hydraulicking began to 
interfere with agricultural interests, and by 1884 the interference had 
advanced to such an extent that prohibitive legislation checked its further 
operations, 1 and capital and enthusiasm turned to quartz-mining, thus 
still more increasing the latter form which had now become well 
developed. 

In the early days of quartz-mining the ore was crushed by stamps 
or rollers, and the rock flour washed as in the placer works. This pro- 
cess in its most perfect state did not save all the gold, so others were 
devised to meet the difficult combinations presented by the ores. A 
method known as the chlorination process has now come to be used 
extensively. The crushed ore before or after concentration, and some- 
times after roasting, is treated with chlorine gas, which forms chloride of 
gold, soluble in water and removed by washing. From this solution the 
gold is easily recovered by precipitation with iron sulphate. Stamp mills 
customarily accompany chlorination plants, and smelting works are some- 
times associated to handle special ores. This process is especially adapted 
to rather high-grade ores and those practically free from iron. A second 
chemical method probably more used than the above is known as the 
cyanide process, and is most serviceable in the treatment of low-grade 
ores. It finds its special field in the reduction of ore carrying iron and 
copper sulphides. The crushed ore in a" slime " condition is treated 
with a strong solution of potassium cyanide, usually strongly aerated, and 
the gold is thus brought into solution and separated from its refractory 
native compounds. Furnaces often follow the cyanide tanks, where with 
suitable fluxes the reduction to metallic gold of specially rebellious ores, 
by means of chemical reactions requiring heat, is effected. Had the ore 
occurred in small or more scattered deposits, even these processes would 
probably fail to extract the metal economically; but since large quantities of 
ore, even though of low grade, can be obtained within a limited area and be 
treated simultaneously, the expensive plant with its trained men, technical 
skill, valuable apparatus, altogether a costly equipment, can be operated 
at a profit. Illustrations of the failure of extensive plants to remain in 
operation are common ; and usually they go out of business because the 
deposits are not as large as supposed, or because their contents are found 
to change character in the course of development, or because some 
resource, water, fuel or timber, has failed. 

As already shown, the geographic conditions favoured the great 
development of placer-mining in the early days and called for little 
development of bed-rock ores. Table I. shows that there has occurred a 
great change since 1880 in the relative importance of quartz and gravel 
as sources of gold. In the early days of California and of most of the 
other States and Territories, including the Carolinas, Georgia, and even 
Alaska, a very large percentage of the metal came from gravels. No 

1 Hubbard, G. D., Bull. Geog. Soc. Phil., vol. ix. (1911), pp. 14-15. 



424 



SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 



reliable statistics on this point dating back farther than 1880 have been 
found. In 1905 only 17 per cent, of the total gold production came 
from gravel. Alaska, the youngest gold producer, supplied over one-half 
of that amount, and she is also the only one with more than a handful in 
its total production that recovered more metal from gravel than from 
quartz. Owing to increased Alaskan placer-mining during 1906 and 
1907 the total percentage of placer gold has gone up during these two 
years. Alaska is still in the placer stage of her gold-mining, If this 
territory with its relatively large placer production be taken out of the 
figures in Table I., the change in the source of gold will become much 
more apparent. This change occurred partly because the placers were 
insufficient to employ the men who had been attracted by them, partly 
because the placers were becoming exhausted, and there was no other 
mining but quartz to which the men might turn. The wealth accumu- 
lated from the early forms of mining was ready to go into the more 
expensive and complex processes, and the conditions required it. 



Table I. — Distribution of Gold and Silver as to 
Sources of Production. 



Year. 


Gold (Fine Ounces). 


■ Silver (Fine Ounces). 


Quartz. 


Placer. 


Quartz Ores. 


Lead Ores (6). 


Copper Ores. 


1907 


3,034,609 


1,192,890 


19,038,042 


19,038,449 


14,200,348 


1906 


3,374,639 


1,328,361 


16,792,799 


21,011,464 


19,288,709 


1905 


3,568,724 


697,018 


13,990,008 


25,147,252 


16,964,340 


1904 


3,245,097 


647,383 


15,113,401 


26,973,843 


15,595,556 


1903 


3,062,762 


591,219 


16,835,528 


25,682,882 


13,844,232 


1902 


3,315,717 


597,964 


16,988,647 


28,035,620 


12,812,291 


1901 


3,243,248 


609,974 


16,064,208 


27,018,344 


14,790,934 


1900 


3,269,794 


597,850 


16,496,711 


30,593,763 


13,121,912 


1899 


3,062,286 


450,958 


15,861,230 


29,000,609 


11,859,334 


1898 


2,812,579 


372,215 


13,716,882 


31,312,676 


10,457,275 


1897 


2,525,387 


390,858 


12,233,429 (c) 


32,244,341 


11,637,395 


1893 


... 




27,641,100(c) 


24,713,100 


7,645,800 


1880 1 


1,741,654 


580,478 (a) 


... 


... 


... 



(a) Excluding Alaska with 288 ounces. 

(b) Colorado lead and copper ores, amounting to about one-half of this item each year, 
are not divided but are placed under lead together. 

(c) Quartz and free milling ores combined. 

Methods that are used with some kinds of ore are worthless in the 
treatment of others, and processes profitable under certain conditions 
would cease to be remunerative under others. In each locality a method 
of extraction and reduction capable of handling the ore in its mineral 
associations, and also adapted to the conditions of water, fuel, and trans- 
portation, must be devised. Because of the relation of mining and 

1 Twelfth Census (1900), Mines and Quarries : Gold and Silver, p. 547. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 425 

reduction processes to the vicinal geographic conditions, the latter may 
seem in cases to control the output ; and so they do. But herein occurs 
an excellent measure of the influence of the metals. They are sometimes 
able to combat and overcome very gigantic obstacles. Many shaft and 
tunnel mines in California successfully met the conditions, because in the 
midst of timber. Had they with the same gold values been located in 
places where timber is so scarce as around some working surface mines 
in Arizona, New Mexico, or Nevada, the output of the mines could not 
have borne the expense because of their moderate values. But many 
mines in these more arid, forestless States are so rich that they can 
sustain the long timber hauls, the struggle (and often great expense) to 
obtain water, the difficulties of costly transportation, or the flooding of 
the mines with water, and have prospered for years against the heavy 
odds. The almost fabulous wealth or other special advantage of certain 
districts has enabled them to surmount the greatest obstacles and to 
produce enormous quantities of the precious metals. The Comstock 1 
lode mines suffered because of excessive heat and of flooding with under- 
ground water, as well as through being in a desert with nothing near that 
was needed. 

The Treadwell 2 mines on Douglas Island, Alaska, situated on a very 
low-grade ore body, in high latitude, and one thousand miles from 
Seattle, are able to run very satisfactorily because of abundance of water, 
sufficient water-power during the seven open months, plenty of fuel, 
cheap sea transportation, ore fairly uniform, constant as depth increases, 
abundant, and easily gotten out of the ground ; and again easily reduced, 
because a large part of the values can be recovered by amalgamation. 
The average cost of operation here for nine years was $1.73 per ton, and 
the yield $2.18 per ton. 3 It is in the ability of these gold deposits to 
overcome such enormous difficulties that their influence is most clearly 
manifested. 

Effects on Scenery. — The influence of some of the above processes on 
the surrounding features, landscape, forest, and stream, is very appreci- 
able. G-ulches once as beautiful as a picture have been dug over, washed 
out and refilled with debris, upon which vegetation has not yet obtained 
a footing. In many places desolation is the only word. Scarred hill- 
sides and pillaged ravines are seen at almost every turn in extensive 
mining regions. Of course gold-mining is not very different from other 
mining in this respect, but the speed with which ends have been reached 
and destruction wrought will compare favourably with any other mining 
operation. The early California days, however, 4 did not witness damaged 
forests except where these were cut for building houses (rare structures 
at first), because timber was not needed to support tunnels and shafts 
so long as placer-mining continued ; but later the axe worked havoc, 
gathering material to timber the shafts and tunnels in the quartz seams 
and to build mills, roads, and railroads. The same sequence may be 

i U.S.O.S. Monog. iv., pp. 56 f., 389 f. 

2 U.S.G.S. Bull. 225, pp. 28, 42. 

3 Twelfth Census (1900), Mines and Quarries: Gold and Silver. 

4 Bancroft, H. H., History of California, vol. vi. p. 416. 

b 



426 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

noted in many places in other States. Where smelters producing 
noxious fumes are being used, their influence on the vegetation is 
appalling. It is stated x that there are no trees in Butte and Anaconda, 
Montana, although formerly there were plenty. Sulphurous acid gas is 
produced by roasting sulphide ores, and this gas is destructive to vegeta- 
tion. It is also a disinfectant, killing disease germs. Through special 
efforts recently to check the nuisance, its destructiveness had been so 
reduced that a few small gardens and some house plants are now 
growing. 2 

1 Correspondence with H. V. Winchell, April 1905. 

2 Correspondence with W. H. Weed, March 1905. 



Reprinted from The Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. xxvii.. September 1911. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES 
AS RESPONSES TO GEOGRAPHIC CONDITIONS. 

By George D. Hubbard, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A. 

( Con tinned from p. 426.) 

Silver. 

Inasmuch as silver is rarely found in gravel and never abundant 
there, the amount of placer silver-mining is negligibly small. For this 
reason there is little single-handed mining. Although silver was known 
in California almost as soon as gold, it was never much worked. It was 
found in other States nearly as soon as was the gold, and its mining 
usually followed that of gold. Bancroft l thinks that silver-mining was 
largely prevented in California for several decades because of the abund- 
ance and accessibility of the richer metal. It has been suggested that 
Californians, having worked in gold so long and so successfully, did not 
care to mine the less noble metal. This may have some weight even yet 
with the average Californian. It would certainly have had more weight 
in earlier days. But whatever the mental attitude of the Californian 
toward silver-mining, it would not interfere with others from the East 
conducting silver-mining operations there. It is true, however, that 
California's silver production is very small compared with that of several 
Western States, and there is probably a good reason for this in the 
occurrence of the metal. Silver is usually obtained with other metals 
which bear the expense of mining, but in California, Shasta, the leading 
county, is the only region where metals other than gold are extracted 
from the silver-mines. Here copper practically pays expenses, and the 
silver may be counted as profit. In other places, as far as known, the 
silver is alone or with gold, and does not occur in rich deposits. It 
may be said, then, that the mining of silver is not generally profitable, 
and .hence not carried on, in California, because of its mode of occurrence. 
Deposits other than superficial, are the chief sources of the metal in 
the West, hence mining operations and appliances are such as are best 
adapted to that kind of ore working. The contents of the vein are 
removed, crushed by stamps or rollers, and passed on to the separating 
devices. If no other metals occur, the silver is separated from the waste 
by amalgamation or smelting. But the ore with copper is smelted with 
its gangue and then separated by subsequent chemical processes. In a 
similar manner the separation from lead ores is accomplished. When 
zinc occurs the problem is a difficult one. At Canyon City and Pueblo, 
Colorado, there have recently been constructed plants for the conversion 
of such rebellious ores. The process converts the zinc into white oxide 
for which there is a strong Eastern market. This rises from the roasting 
ore as a fume, having the appearance of white smoke, and is condensed 
by cooling, after which the ore may be treated for the silver content. 

1 History of California } vol. vii. p. 6f>l. 



471 GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 

These silver reduction processes are all expensive and more or less 
involved, requiring capital, labour, fuel, apparatus, and technical skill ; 
but large quantities of ore render their operation both possible and 
economical. 

Special Types. — Two or three special types of silver occurrence and 
associated reduction plants may well be examined to discover the relation 
of plant and process to the ore and its surroundings. First in order of 
time was the Comstock lode, 1 whose development and twenty years of 
startling history began in 1858, and from which the first silver in 
Western United States was taken. The metals in this lode occur in 
quartz along a contact of two igneous rocks where there has been some 
slipping. The lode is hundreds of feet broad in the widest portion, 
while it tapers out and divides before disappearing at the ends. Mines 
have been located along it for two miles. Nothing short of a bonanza, 
however, could have survived the litigation and physical difficulties in 
the way of its development. A rocky, parched, barren mountain slope, 
over a mile above sea-level, deserts all around, only meagre brooks in the 
main ravines in spring, all of which were dry in summer ; water gotten 
only from lakes twenty miles distant ; no timber for buildings or mine 
support within at least as many miles, and this all to be hauled over 
sandy or stony roads, and no fuel but scrub nearer than this distant 
timber ; roads cut and blasted through canyons and along ledges and 
mountain precipices, and out over high Sierra passes, always snow-filled 
in winter ; severe winters, deep snows and high winds ; no crops, and 
very difficult and expensive transportation of food and all supplies from 
San Francisco ; peculiar, irregular, and unfamiliar distribution and occur- 
rence of ore resulting in great loss in developing ; inadequate laws and 
regulations, conflicting claims and confusion of titles leading to enormous 
and ravaging lawsuits ; the mine, as it deepened, flooded with alkaline 
waters, and hampered with temperatures of 100° to 140° F. and great 
humidity, — these constituted some of the difficulties. It seemed as if 
nothing could be accomplished. But so great was the power of glamour 
and the actual wealth, that many difficulties were overcome, and others 
were borne while a city sprang up on the site. The population of the 
territory increased by immigration, attracted by the marvellous reports, 
until statehood was granted in 1864. Nothing else laiown in that 
harren region would have called people thither. Not only did the 
development of this great lode attract the attention of miners and 
scientists, but its output disturbed the world's monetary system. 2 When 
its prime was reached in 1877 and its total production of gold and silver 
had mounted up to about $300,000,000, its decline came rapidly ; for in 
four years the annual production fell from $36,000,000 to $1,000,000, :? 
then rose to two, three, and even seven millions, but fell off again through 
the last decade to less than $200,000. The cessation of operations at the 

i U.S.G.S. Monogr. iii., pp. 3, 6; U.S.G.S. Monogr. iv., pp. 56-76, 86, 190, 203- 
205, 331-3. 

2 Tarr, R. S., Economic Geol., p. 182 ; Watson, D. K., History of Amer . Coinage, pp. 120- 
238 ; Ries, H., JScon. GeoL, pp. 494-5. 

:{ Lord, Eliot, U.S.G.S. Monogr. iv., p. 416. 



SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 472 

great Comstock lode was due to a failure of the company to master 
certain geographic conditions — viz., the mines filling with water faster 
than the mahinery was able to pump it out, and the encountering of 
high temperature. Thus the water and the excessive heat made further 
development impossible. The population of the State declined to a 
point below the statehood limit, and the region reverted to its former 
wilderness condition. In this mine, some two hundred miles of tunnels 
have been opened, and wide galleries where the lode was wide and rich. 
These tunnels are supported by timbers, and the galleries were literally 
filled with blocks of wood and stone as the ore was removed. All the 
wood came from the forests some twenty miles to the west over a barren 
waste of sand and without a railroad. When the mine was apparently 
approaching prosperity, the supporting timbers caught fire and burned, 
which necessitated the added expense of replacing them or abandoning 
parts of the workings. Probably more has been spent in the Comstock 
region than the total output of the mines would replace. Efforts are 
now being made to revive the big mine. New pumps and new and 
repaired machinery are increasing the yield, until in 1901, 1902, and 
1903 each the production was over $1,000,000. Since 1903 it has 
again fallen off" to less than $250,000, but has been gradually rising in 
the last two or three years. 

Since the ore is native silver and gold with some argentite, in a 
gangue of quartz, stamp mills or other ore crushers, and adapted amalga- 
mating pans, are all that is necessary for its reduction. Before the end 
of 1861, companies to operate such mills to the number of eighty-six, 
capitalised with an aggregate sum of over $60,000,000, had been 
organised in the region ; and many others followed soon after. 1 The 
mills were far in excess of the needs of the mines in their best days, and 
now scores of them are rotting down on their flimsy and too hastily 
constructed foundations. This enormous waste was due to men under 
the influence of the glamour and the possibilities of the great lode ; 
and now, sobered by thirty to forty years, we look back and wonder and 
smile at their delusion. 

Leadville, 2 Colorado, forms a second type. Work in this region 
began in a gold placer in 1860, to which miners rushed from many 
quarters, and from which was taken several million dollars worth of gold. 
A flourishing mining town, Oro, sprang up ; but when the gold became 
exhausted its creation, the town, declined. In 1874 the lead carbonate, 
carrying silver, a weather product of the deeper-lying sulphides, was 
recognised ; and in five or six years its enormous development again gave 
the region a good rank as a mining centre. The new town, Leadville, 
grew from a few log-houses, a 10x12 grocery store and two saloons, with 
a population of one or two hundred in 1877, to a city of 15,000 with 
$8,000,000 to $30,000,000 assessable property, twenty-eight miles of 
streets, waterworks, gasworks, schools, churches, hospitals, and fourteen 
smelters in 1880. The lead carries good values in both gold and silver. 

i Lord, E., loc. cit., p. 126. 

2 U.S.G.S. Monogr. xii., pp. 1-16, 375-6, 614, 636-47. 



473 GOLD AND SILVER MINING AND REDUCTION PROCESSES. 

The ore really is an argentiferous galena bearing native gold and, deeper 
down, zinc in a gangue of barite, chert, and calcite within a vein along 
a limestone-porphyry contact. Copper, manganese, bismuth, iron, anti- 
mony, molybdenum, and others have been recovered from this hetero- 
geneous deposit ; but zinc, silver, lead and gold, usually in the order 
named, are the best payers. 1 This region contains a greater assortment 
of metals and more complex associations than almost any • other in 
America. Placer-miners were troubled with the lead carbonate, 
commonly called heavy rock, in their sluices from the start ; and their 
process was modified to avoid difficulties and dispose of the unknown 
rock. When its nature became known, and the bed-rock sources were 
discovered, shaft-mining and mill reduction began. But these carbonate 
and associated sulphides could not be worked by crushing and amalga- 
mation as were the ores of Comstock ; hence, smelters using the dolo- 
mitic limestone of the vicinity and the coke from coal-fields a few miles 
distant were constructed. Crushers were associated with the furnaces to 
reduce the coarser pieces of ore, but their work was only a minor part of 
the process. 

This second type of silver ore is characterised by its complexity and 
by large values in lead and zinc, and the reduction plant to be successful 
must respond to the conditions and become itself more complex. Lead- 
and zinc-mining are profitable here, because the silver and gold occur 
with them and may be added to the output with little expense. The 
decline in the price of silver recently aided in closing a number of the 
Leadville plants. So intimate is the relation of ore and process that 
neither lead nor zinc can be recovered unless silver remain above a certain 
figure. 2 Lead is a rather common associate with silver in several AVestern 
States, notably Utah, Idaho, and Washington. The famous Eureka of 
eastern Nevada is also classed here. 3 

A third type is that of Butte, Montana. This region began as a gold- 
and silver-mining centre, but has become the greatest copper-producing 
region in the world, with large quantities of gold and silver as by-products. 
The ores, as now worked, are mainly copper sulphides with some galena and 
blende in a quartz gangue with moderate values in silver and gold. The 
mines are situated along veins cutting the granite knob upon which Butte 
is situated, and their product is smelted at Butte, Anaconda, and Great 
Falls. The output in 1906 was as follows — copper about $55,000,000, 
silver $7,000,000, gold $1,250,000, and lead $51,000. The ore 
cannot be treated as is that of either of the above types, nor can it be 
mined in the same way. The geographic conditions and associations of the 
silver require specifically different processes. Furthermore, no such hard- 
ships and difficulties have to be overcome in the two latter types as in 
the first. Early transportation difficulties have been overcome by the 
construction of railroads. Fuel is near in both cases, timber is abundant 
and good, the water supply is adequate, and water in the mines is easily 



1 U.S. Dept. Treas. Ann. Repts. on Prod, of Precious Metals, 1903 f. 

2 Ibid., 1900, p. 115 ; Tarr, R. S., Econ. Geo?., p. 235. 
s U.S.G.S. Monogr. vii., p. 64-79. 



SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 474 

controlled. The Butte association of silver with copper is common in 
Utah and Arizona. 

Table I. (p. 424) shows a marked change in the relative amount of silver 
recovered from each of the three types of ore. This partial desertion of 
the quartz ores for the copper ores is due, in part, to the discovery of the 
new and more closely adapted metallurgical processes required by the more 
complex ores, and, in part, to the association of two or more by-products 
with the silver whose value with that of the silver makes possible, with 
similar outlay, a total production of metal of greater value than that 
possible in the pure quartz-mining. 

Summary. — Not many of these deposits which are now yielding in 
the aggregate by far the major portion of our silver, could be operated at 
all for the silver alone. Hence it is due to its association that the silver 
output is what it is. On the other hand, when the price of silver declines 
or the ore values in silver fall below certain figures, certain mines must 
shut down, curtailing the supply of copper, lead, or zinc at the expense of 
the factories using these metals. In each of these three types, the metal- 
lurgical processes used depend upon the associated minerals ; and the 
general problems met vary with the supply of timber, water, food and 
transportation. 

In all the mining processes discussed the influence of the geo- 
graphic conditions, including both telegraphic relations and mineral 
and rock associations, have aided in determining — first, whether the deposit 
shall be worked at all or not ; second, what processes shall be employed, 
i.e. whether cradles and toms, dredges, stamp mills or smelters ; and third, 
what problems of transportation, supplies, and materials must be met, and 
how they are to be solved. It is true that man's knowledge and skill 
are important factors all through the general problem of extraction and 
reduction of the precious metals ; but it is equally true that the closer 
man causes his machines and processes to conform to the natural require- 
ments, the greater his success ; and that the ruins of plants and dismantled 
machines all over the West proclaim the fate of apparatus and process 
that is not a response to the conditions. 



[Reprinted from The Bulletin of The Geographical Society of Philadelphia, 

Vol. IX, No. I, January, 191 1.] 



THE RELATION OF GOLD AND SILVER MINING TO 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASSOCIATED 

INDUSTRIES. 1 

George D. Hubbard. 

Relative Magnitude of Several Industries. — Perhaps no industry 
in America aside from agriculture has done so much pioneer work 
for other industries as has the mining of the precious metals. The 
reason for this appears in the distribution of their production. The 
relative importance of the different states in the industry is also 
shown in accompanying tables (I and II), which still further show in 
which of the states to look for the greatest influence of the metals, 
as well as those in which their influence may be small or practically 
wanting. This phase of its influence, together with its relation to 
other industries upon which it in some degree depends, or which 
depend more or less upon it, constitutes a large and important field 
for study. In the aggregate, the value of the output of this industry 
seems enormous, and truly it is ; but lest too exalted an opinion of 
its magnitude be gotten from this study of its influence, the figures 
for a few crops and industries are inserted in Table III. According 
to the last census 2 there were in the United States forty-two indus- 
tries, the products of any one of which possess a value greater than 
that of gold or of silver mining, and twenty-three whose individual 
values are greater than that of both gold and silver mining together. 
This table (page 4), containing only a few of the items and not all 
of the large ones, makes it clear that it is not necessarily the indus- 
try whose product has great value that creates the most stir or most 
profoundly influences man and his work. Lead smelting and refin- 
ing has an output 20 per cent, larger than both gold and silver. 
Carpentering has twice as large a value as both combined. Gold 

1 This paper is a portion of a thesis presented as a part of the require- 
ments for the Ph.D. degree in geography at Cornell. See Scottish Geog. 
Mag. and Bull. Am. Geog. Society for other parts. Special thanks are due 
Professors Tarr, Willcox and Ries, of Cornell, for criticism and sugges- 
tion throughout the whole work. 

2 12th Census U. S. (1900), Abs., pp. 322-323. 

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TABLE III. 

Values of Certain Crops and Products. 



Extractive Industries, 1899. 


Manufacturing Industries, 1899. 


Industry or Product. 


Value. 


Industry or Product. 


Value. 


Gold mining (product) . 
Silver mining (product) . 

Iron mining (ore) 

Corn 

Wheat 

Cotton 


$71,053,000 

70,807,000 

58,000,000 

828,000,000 

370,000,000 

324,000,000 
217,000,000 
144,000,000 
137,000,000 
98,000,000 


Iron and steel 


$804,000,000 
347,000,000 
339,000,000 
316,000,000 
175,000,000 

131,000,000 


Printing and publishing 

Cotton goods 

Carpentering 

Lead smelting and refining . . 

Cheese, butter and condensed 

milk 


Oats 

Eggs 

Potatoes 


Marble and stone work 

Confectionery 

Shipbuilding 

Brick and tile 


85,000,000 
81,000,000 
75,000,000 
51,000,000 







production is not so large by 10 million dollars as the total for con- 
fectionery and is surpassed by the value of the potato crop to the 
amount of 27 millions. The product of either the poultry or egg 
industry is about equal to the total gold and silver output; while 
corn, wheat, cotton and oats is each millions beyond the precious 
metals. In spite of their minor statistical rank, however, what of 
their importance? What of their influence on other industries? 

Further, Table IV (part A) shows that, although the mining 
of gold and silver is important in many ways, its intrinsic value 
compared with several other industries is not great even in some of 
the western frontier states. It makes clear the fact (part B) that 
the per capita production of gold and silver is almost universally 
smaller than that of either agriculture or manufactures, the former 
restrained by climate and the latter by general frontier conditions. 
Five single states east of the Mississippi each had a production of 
manufactures greater than that of all these eleven states and terri- 
tories combined, and the manufactures of New York were more than 
three times as great as all ; while that of these western states aggre- 
gates more than six times the value of their gold and silver output. 

And this minor industry has broken the way, provided the means 
and called the labor west for the development of many industries. 
It has successfully demanded people, railroads, manufactures, agri- 
culture and general industrial development over a third of conti- 
nental United States far in advance of the fondest dreams of the 
most sanguine colonizer. 

(4) 



George D. Hubbard. 



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•(5) 



6 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

Prehistoric Mining and Metallurgy. — Even back in prehistoric 
time, Indian metallurgy, in response to the occurrence of gold, devel- 
oped methods for smelting the ore. The Cherokees were successful 
smelters of gold in Georgia where De Soto found them, each with 
a long clay-tipped reed in his mouth sitting around a concave stone, 
upon which were laid a few pieces of auriferous quartz, and blow- 
ing a fire placed below the heap. The Peruvians and Mexicans 
washed gold-bearing gravel, and the former mined quartz-silver 
ledges as deep as they could shovel the rock out. This ore they 
smelted with blow-pipes similar to those used by the Cherokees. 
Even these simple and primitive processes seemed to have been 
known only where the ore was known. Subsequently, under the 
stimulus of the presence of the metal, the natives developed more 
complex and more closely adapted processes. 

Interrelation of Early and Later Mining. — The relation of placer 
mining to later gold and silver mining has been suggested. It 
seems probable that had there been no placer gold to point the way, 
call miners west, and furnish easily gotten capital for the develop- 
ment of quartz mining, the latter, in its mountain fastnesses, would 
have been much later in development, and perhaps even yet would 
not have appealed to men. It certainly was very fortunate that the 
rich auriferous gravels were widely distributed to introduce their 
ancestors to prospective miners. 

Influence on Utilization of Gangue Minerals. — The influence of 
the precious metals on the production of lead, copper and zinc was 
first felt in the West when mining of the latter began. Prospect- 
ing for the more valuable ores revealed the others ; but their work- 
ing nowhere began until they were encountered in the gold or silver 
mines and could be recovered with the latter. It is doubtful if the 
development of the lead, copper or zinc industries in the western 
states would have attained to any considerable importance even 
down to the present, if the precious metals had not blazed the way. 
There are many mines now producing both silver and lead, zinc or 
copper, which could not operate for one alone. Fortunately lead, 
used for a flux, is found with silver in many places in sufficient 
quantities for the smelters. But in a few places the flux does not 
occur and must be shipped to the works. In response to the demand 
for lead ores, both British Columbia and Mexico sent appreciable 

(6) 



George D. Hubbard. 7 

amounts. 4 Many gangue minerals, occurring in the seam with silver 
or gold and requiring removal to recover the metal, are now saved 
and turned to economic importance. Sometimes the gangue min- 
eral is of more value than the gold, but without the latter to attract 
attention, add zest to the mining pursuit and help pay expenses, it 
would never have been developed away off in the West. Some such 
metallic ores have been mentioned. Other gangue minerals taken in 
the general process are fluorite, antimony and arsenic compounds, 
and a number of minerals yielding the rarer metals. 

Stimulation of Mercury Mining. — Quicksilver mining received 
quite an impetus when its product began to be applied to the reduc- 
tion of gold and silver. For several years after its usefulness was 
discovered, little was found in America; but in 1567 the metal, in 
cinnabar, was found abundant at Huancavelica in Peru. Since its 
value was known, and the precious metal ores both of Peru and 
Mexico were adapted to its use, the business of mining and trans- 
porting it to the gold mines leaped into full-fledged maturity at 
once. 5 

In the early forties this metal was discovered in California, but 
no use was known for it there, and the considerable distance to the 
mines of Mexico did not encourage its output ; but when the placers 
of the Sierra gulches were found, the position of California's mer- 
cury gave it a tremendous advantage over the South American cin- 
nabar deposits, and under this geographic advantage the young in- 
dustry flourished. Under the constant stimulus of the markets of 
the West, the mercury mines have increased their output, until 
the United States produced in 1901 6 two fifths of the world's total 
and California 90 per cent, of that. In fact, the production is now 
far above our own needs, and mercury is sent to China, Mexico, 
Alaska, British Columbia and to Latin America. 

Influence on Various Manufacturing Industries. — The various 
metallurgical processes connected with the reduction of gold and 
silver are consumers of large quantities of chemicals. The chlori- 
nation process stimulates the salt industry, from whose product 
chlorine is derived. Large quantities of potassium cyanide are used 

4 U. S. Industrial Com., 1901, Vol. 12, p. xli. 

6 Stirling, P. J., " Gold Discoveries and their Probable Consequences," 

1853, PP- 127-133. 

6 U. S. G. S., " Min. Resources," 1902, pp. 251-258. 

(7) 



8 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

in the cyanide process; while zinc, iron sulphate, manganese perox- 
ide, caustic soda, lime, and the mineral acids contribute to the outfit 
of the large establishments ; and this demand for chemicals increases 
the business of chemical manufacturing concerns. 7 

The first process required pans and shovels and more or less 
repairing; hence, at the outfitting towns and commercial centers, 
blacksmith-shops and forges were set up. Even in 1849 an d 1850 
there were several, and during the next few years others followed. 
Many such concerns failed because of the fluctuating demand; but 
in 1 861 and 1862 prices became steadier and the location of the 
camps more permanent, resulting in the rapid improvement of these 
little plants and the introduction of more extensive machine shops. 
Then came the invention and construction of machinery for the 
various new processes. Nozzles, flume-irons, chains, dredging ma- 
chines, engines, stamp mills, and various separators, and unheard-of 
devices for all sorts of processes were made. Many types appeared 
which were good for nothing but the rubbish heap or the furnace 
after having served as a stepping stone to a better adaptation. Mills 
and machine shops increased as their business grew. Special modes 
of occurrence and peculiar conditions required special machinery, 
and several towns took upon themselves to supply the desired arti- 
cles ; but their attempts frequently failed because of their isolated 
positions with reference to the mines and the sources of materials ; 
while San Francisco has taken a leading rank in making highly 
specialized milling machinery, pumps and engines. 8 Her work is 
characterized by ingenuity, originality, great adaptability, and inde- 
pendence of precedent. San Francisco has become the tenth Amer- 
ican city in manufactures, shipping apparatus in large quantities to 
many points in the West, and also to Mexico, the South American 
states, British Columbia, and even to Australia and South Africa. 

Gold and Silver in the Arts. — One line of manufacturing which 
in the West is especially responsive to the call of the mining industry 
is jewelry making. While the center of the business is on the 
Atlantic coast, many thousands of dollars' worth are made in San 
Francisco and other cities of the mountain states. In the early 
California days, some small beginnings were made, and by the close 

7 Eissler, Manuel, " Metallurgy of Gold," pp. 345-6 ; Park, J., " The Cya- 
nide Process," 1900, pp. 4, 96. 

8 Bancroft, H. H., " History of California," 1884, Vol. VII, pp 94-95. 

(8) 



George D. Hubbard. 9 

of 1850 several good local enterprises had been built up, because 
of the work that the miners wanted done. Denver and Salt Lake 
City share this industry. In 1880, the California jewelry establish- 
ments consumed between 50,000 and 60,000 ounces of silver beside 
much gold. Yet only a small per cent, of the jewelry sold in Cali- 
fornia and the West is of local manufacture. The metals go east, 
are manufactured mostly in and around Providence, R. I., and New 
York City, and their products return. 9 A considerable amount of 
the annual production of both metals is used in the industrial arts 
in gold and silver plating, gilding, leaf work and solid wares. The 
following table (V) gives the amount of gold used in each of the 



TABLE V. 

Production and Use of Gold and Silver in the World. 

Commercial Values. 



Year 


Metal. 


1901 


Gold 


1902 


Gold 


I903 


Gold 


1901 


Silver 


1902 


Silver 


1903 


Silver 



Production. 



^260,992,900 

296,048,800 

325,527,200 

103,805,700 

85,507,200 

92,039,600 



Used in Indus- 
trial Arts. 


Per Cents 

of Total 

Production. 


179,268,000 


30 


75,764,400 


25-5 


76,350,600 


24 


26,435,800 


25 


25,654,190 


30 


27,072,346 


30 



Coined or Stamped 
in Bars at Mint. 



£248,093,787 

220,405,125 

240,496,274 

57,072,308 

79.588,484 
87,223,743 



Per Cents 

of Total 

Production. 



95 
75 
74 
54 
93 
94 



years 1901, 1902 and 1903 in this way, also the amount coined in 
the world, with the per cent, of each figured on the total produc- 
tion of the world. Seeming impossibilities in connection with the 
per cents, will disappear, when it is remembered that only about 
two thirds of the gold used in the arts is new gold, coin and old 
jewelry making up the other third ; and that several per cent, of the 
gold coined is old coin recoined. Moreover, there is often an 
■unused balance left over from the previous year. 

The following table (VI) shows the amount of gold and silver 
used in the arts by the leading nations in their relative rank for 
the calendar year 1901. 

Four nations manufactured about three fourths of all gold used 
in the industry. Great Britain was the greatest consumer, with the 
United States a close second. United States is the only country 
using any considerable amount of gold in the arts that produces 



Ibid., VII, p. 97- 



(9) 



10 



Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 



TABLE VI. 
Leading Nations Using Gold and Silver in the Arts in 1901. 



Nation. 


Gold. 


Silver (Commercial 
Value). 


Total. 


Per Cents of 
Total Used. 


United States . . 
Great Britain . . . 

France 

Germany 

All others 


$17,379,100 

19,147,100 

14,355,400 

7,139,800 

21,246,600 


$7,709,100 
5,304,200 
3,656,700 
2,893,000 ' 
6,872,800 


$25,088,200 
24,451,300 
18,012,100 
10,032,800 
28,119,400 


cir. 24 
cir. 23 
cir. 1 7 
cir. 9.5 
cir. 26.5 


Totals 


$79,268,000 


$26,435,800 


$105,703,800 


100. 



her own gold ; hence, there must be a movement of gold to England,. 
France and Germany. In the case of England, this comes mainly 
from her colonies. We export large quantities, both to France and 
to Germany, thus aiding their use of the precious metals and in- 
creasing our export. But the fact that the sources of gold and 
silver in such large quantities lie within our own borders is much 
more important to the development of the use of the precious metals 
in our own work in the industrial arts, than it is to that of any 
other nation. Table VI shows that we use about one fourth of the 
gold and one third of the silver which the world uses in the arts. 
Our great home production makes it easy for us to obtain our sup- 
ply, and probably aids in stimulating the desire to manufacture and 
use such large quantities of both metals. For this reason, we, a 
young nation, are using more gold and silver in the arts than Great 
Britain, an old, rich, established nation. 

That portion consumed in the industrial arts is used in various- 
factories, printing establishments and local jeweler's shops. In 
very few cases, if any, is gold the chief raw product, and probably 
in no case is it the only one. It is said that most of the gold from 
the South Atlantic States in the early part of the last century was 
purchased by local jewelers, who were anxious to get it because 
its fineness exceeded that of coin. 10 Most of the gold manufac- 
tured, aside from that used by local jewelers, is made up in a few 
eastern cities, but the use of silver is more widely distributed. Four 
states, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, 11 
in the order named, make over seven eighths of all jewelry reported 
to the census ; and the city of Providence has about one half of the 

"Whitney, J. D., "Auriferous Gravels," 1854, P- "7- 
n i2th U. S. Census, "Manufactures," 1, cc. 

(10) 



George D. Hubbard. 1 1 

industry, while New York City and Newark, N. J., have respect- 
ively one fifth and one seventh. Two small suburbs of Providence, 
Attleboro and North Attleboro, both in Massachusetts, each have 
a considerable percentage of the total. In gold and silver leaf and 
foil, New York City leads with 75 per cent, of the industry, and 
Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston follow with the balance. These 
three or four eastern centers lead in these industries because the 
smiths located near their wealthy markets years ago, and because 
the large amount of capital needed in the industry could more 
easily be had in the East ; and the change in source of raw material 
has not been sufficient reason to overcome their adjustment to these 
environments. Hence they stay there. It is not the production nor 
place of production that determines the place of manufacture. Bar 
gold, silver bricks, bullion or ore can be shipped more easily from 
the West to market than could the delicate manufactured product. 

Mining and Lumbering. — The roaming prospector found the 
timber and in locating his mine took a long step toward the devel- 
opment of the forest cutting, since a mine or a mining plant requires 
lumber in great quantities. This need establishes a market for saw- 
mill products. In California, late arrivals in the fall of 1849, unable 
to get into the gulches for mining, began cutting wood, which found 
ready market in San Francisco and elsewhere. They received $15 
per cord for it, and the boatmen received $40 for it in the city. 13 
This is the elementary example of what took place systematically 
in many localities, where mining could not be carried on during the 
winter. The men engaged in lumbering in the winter and mining 
in the summer. Much more now than in the earlier days the saw- 
mill goes into camp with or before the stamp-mill and smelter. 
From the extraction of lumber for mining purposes to the general 
industry is but a step, and where the railroad to the mine has made 
lumbering at its terminus or along the route possible, there is often 
a vigorous development of the industry. 

The Trades and Other Local Occupations. — Thousands of miners 
■drifted into Salt Lake City and San Francisco and either loafed or 
engaged in the trades as they could find opportunity. A whole 
group of such trades developed, made necessary and possible by the 
presence of mining. Some preferred trapping to any city occupa- 

13 Taylor, B., "Eldorado," 1857, pp. 290-291. 

(") 



12 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

tion. Ferrying, and with it river navigation, wherever the streams 
permitted, were important adjuncts to the pioneer industry. Road 
construction early began to receive attention, because, first, sup- 
plies must be taken to the camps; and, second, the products of the 
camps were sufficient to pay the expense of building. While some 
roads were thoroughly adequate, however, most of the West was 
never well equipped. Make-shifts were made, or nothing at all 
was done beyond what the teamster had to do to get his load along. 
In the hydraulicking region roads were never safe any more than 
other property. A gold seeker could' by law, and often did, sluice 
a road away or cut an impassable channel across it and leave it 
for years. Exceptional cases are on .record. A party of hydraulic 
miners washed a road out for many yards because it was in their 
way; and then, having finished their exploitations, peeled the soil 
and loose rock from the hillsides above the road, with the same 
engine that had wrought the destruction, and washed enough back 
into the old roadway to repair the damage they had done. The 
restoration was not expensive and wa's as rapidly accomplished as 
an army of men with teams could have done. 

Hydraulic streams, introduced for mining purposes alone, have 
been applied to various herculean tasks in the West. Material has 
been washed into a stream for the construction of a wing dam by 
the use of the powerful stream. In the same manner the Sound 
in front of Seattle is being filled to make new land for the use of 
the city. In Montana a ditch . for the conveyance of water was 
made in the soil by the plowing action of a gigantic hydraulic stream. 
Probably none of these uses would ever have been made of hydraulic 
streams had not the idea been suggested in mining. More extended 
use than that so far accorded it may yet be made. 

Influence on Agriculture. — The mining of the precious metals 
in the United States, from its beginnings, has been in close touch 
with agriculture. In the first rush in California, men, all over 
the state, deserted farms for gravel bars, and essentially crippled 
the industry. Occasionally a man remained on his ranch and con- 
tinued to produce wheat, fruits or cattle, and with the enormous 
demand for fresh products he was able to obtain fabulous prices. 
It was often as good a business as mining and much more health- 
ful. 14 A considerable number of miners soon saw this and joined 

(12) 



George D. Hubbard. 13 

the ranks of the food purveyors. Agriculture received a tremen- 
dous boom during the early years of gold mining, because of the 
sudden, prodigious development of the demand for its products 
wherever mining developed. Not only was the industry affected 
in the mining districts, but the influence went abroad through many 
states. Washington and Oregon, more advanced in settlement and 
development than any other western region in 1848 and 1849, were 
greatly disturbed. 15 Excessive emigration and curtailment of immi- 
gration robbed every industry of its men. Agriculture especially 
suffered. But the depression was short-lived, for in the general 
advancement of the West these two territories felt the stimulus 
strongly, and the rapid development of their industries is a measure 
of their response. The benefits were specially felt among the poorer 
people. Many were in debt and unable to earn enough to pay their 
obligations. But by the enlarged market and higher prices, created 
by gold mining, money became so abundant that debts easily melted 
away. Because these territories were a little more remote than 
California, their industries received much more moderate and health- 
ful shocks. 

But with the beginning of hydraulicking in California, agriculture 
1 was found to be in a losing race with mining, both in the field and 
on paper. Mining was the predominant industry, more universal, 
used more men, produced more value and created many times more 
interest. With the greater importance of mining almost univer- 
sally conceded, it was not hard to override agriculture and several 
other industries. Practically every industry of a mining district suf- 
fered interference in some way. 16 Mining was indeed a great indus- 
try, and the people were under its spell. They were short-sighted, 
prejudiced, self-deceived, not perceiving that to cripple agriculture 
meant to cripple the state. Industries that should have gone hand 
in hand because of their interdependence became intensely antago- 
nistic. Even state legal decisions were discriminating. By the 
ruling of state courts " Agricultural lands although in the posses- 
, sion of farmers may be worked for gold," and " the right belongs 
to miners to enter on public mineral lands although used for agri- 

14 Bancroft, H. H., " History of California," Vol. VI, p. 65. 
"Bancroft, H. H., "History of Oregon," Vol. II, pp. 56-57; "History 
of Washington, Idaho, and Montana," p. 13. 

16 Shinn, C. H., "Mining Camps," 1885, pp. 260 f. 

(13) 



14 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

cultural purposes by others, and, whether inclosed, or taken up and 
entered under the Possessory Acts." "All persons who settle for 
agricultural purposes upon any mining lands in California settle at 
their own risk." "The miner . . . may at any time proceed to 
extract any valuable metals which he finds in such lands." " The 
fairest of gardens, thriftiest of vineyards, most fruitful of orchards, 
one and all, were liable to be destroyed without remedy by early 
placer miners." They might " undermine houses, wash away fertile 
fields, move towns to new sites and tear the old location down to 
bed rock with torrents of water." 

It became apparent very early that war had been declared be- 
tween the two belligerent interests. Grevious complaints were en- 
tered, and attempts at combination made among the farmers. The 
miners haughtily claimed their rights. The first real organization 
was effected on Bear River, a tributary of the Sacramento, when the 
land owners formed the Protective Association to prosecute mining 
companies for damages. It was asserted that this stream, before 
hydraulicking began, was clear and pure, and in these few years had 
been made so muddy that it was of no value for irrigation ; and that 
its bed had been aggraded ten to fourteen feet, while the stream 
overflowed its banks, devastating fields along its course. 17 But the 
organization failed to accomplish results, because the blame could 
not be located. The members of a camp washed earth into the 
stream and damaged crops, but who should pay damages could not 
be decided ; nor could they tell what the crop uninjured would have 
been worth. And worse yet was the complication, when several 
camps washed gravel into the same stream, or several gulches fed 
the single stream on lower land. All feeders brought rock waste, 
but no damage was done until the burdens were united in the slow- 
flowing stream. Yet something must be done. To let matters con- 
tinue was to sacrifice agricultural lands and river channels as well, 
and to prohibit hydraulicking was to cripple the mining business and 
throw away millions of dollars invested in its development. 18 

Matters gradually took on another aspect, however, when it was 
really comprehended that the conflict between agriculture and min- 
ing was civil war; and in January, 1884, the California Supreme 
Court ruled that " private rights could not be encroached upon under 

17 Patterson, R. H., " The New Golden Age, etc.," 1882, Vol. I, p. 262. 

18 Bancroft, H. H., "History of California," Vol. VII, p. 648. 

(14) 



George D. Hubbard. i 5 

guise of miner's customs even in districts where statutes recognize 
validity of such local laws." Thus agriculture ultimately con- 
quered, as it must surely do. Gold mining cannot survive without 
agricultural products, either local or imported. The business calls 
agriculture into existence, if at all possible, and because of depen- 
dence upon it, cannot effectually crush it. In Arizona and New 
Mexico, while the conditions for successful agriculture are gener- 
ally at a premium because of the general aridity, many crops can be 
grown by irrigation. Such crops, because of their proximity to the 
mining towns and camps, would bring good prices. Fruit and vege- 
table farms located within convenient distance of such markets and 
supplied with irrigation facilities would be profitable, because ad- 
vanced prices could be commanded. Of course such an item, in 
reducing the difficulties of mining this region, would promote the 
latter industry and in turn react on agriculture. The two industries 
cater to each other, and neither can be successfully arrayed against 
its helper without mutual loss. 

Placer and hydraulic mining brought blessings also to the lands. 
The results were not all destructive. Broad alluvial flats were built 
up where nothing but worthless gravel or even less valuable bare 
rock existed, and these are now enormously productive. Many 
farms, temporarily inundated with 'muddy water, were renewed by 
a layer of fine mud sediment. Shinn asserts that " lands have as 
often been created as others have been ruined." 19 It is probably 
rather strong, but it approaches the truth. In many places the great 
ditches, tunnels and canals, constructed for mining purposes and 
abandoned on the exhaustion of the placers, are now used for irri- 
gation ditches. Ditches that could not possibly be constructed out 
of agricultural profits alone were easily launched by mining cor- 
porations, and now in several states are bringing their blessings to 
orchards and farms. 

Thus in summary the presence of gold and silver mining in the 
West, which alone of all kinds of mining was best suited to sur- 
vive in a new and distant land, stimulated and greatly encouraged 
agriculture as an associated pioneer industry. And the special 
forms of mining necessarily adopted, placer and hydraulic processes, 
because the glamor of gold gave the industry undue importance, 

19 Shinn, C. H., "Mining Camps," p. 263. 

(15) 



1 6 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

overrode the rights of agriculture and seriously interfered with it. 
Had the gold been found in a region with other industries well 
established, this interference would not have occurred. And, finally, 
while the two industries, mining and agriculture, mutually aided and 
fostered each other, the above mentioned special processes provided 
enriched fields and irrigation ditches, which might be appropriated 
by agriculture and thus be made to contribute still further to the 
expansion of the latter. 

Development of Transportation. — A great industry, whose ex- 
pansion in the fifties may be attributed almost entirely to the precious 
metals, is that of transportation and its concomitant construction. 
World commerce with its existing means underwent rapid enlarge- 
ment at once on the advent of gold into the list of western com- 
modities. The Pacific, never before navigated for trade in any 
regular way except around the southern capes to India, was brought 
into requisition. Its vast area of public highway was used from 
Cape Horn northward to San Francisco, and from Puget Sound 
southward, and not only for men but for provisions. Transporta- 
tion of supplies as well as men from Hawaii was greatly stimulated. 
The number of vessels from the Orient increased many fold during 
the first few years of the western awakening. And even down to 
the present oriental trade and communication grow rapidly with the 
development of the West, although the direct influence of mining 
proportionately decreases as the influence of other unfolding indus- 
tries increases. 

Land Routes. — On land the response to the demand for trans- 
portation facilities was sure, but laborious. We have seen 20 what 
it meant to transport the thousands of people across the continent 
in wagons, on pack animals and on foot. The problem of moving 
bulky goods was more difficult, and the increasing necessity of 
getting all manner of goods into the West in the fifties made any 
solution thereof inadequate as soon as it materialized. Organized 
pack trains of great heavy wagons drawn by multiple teams of 
horses or cattle were among the first responses. Many an emigrant 
loaded his wagon with merchandise, which he expected to sell when 
he reached California. The clumsy wagons drawn across country 
were often later put into local stage service. With a cargo of 

20 Bull. Am. Geog. Soc. 

(16) 



George D. Hubbard. 17 

5,000-16,000 pounds and ten to twelve teams of oxen or mules, 
these vehicles crawled out of San Francisco, Sacramento or Stock- 
ton to the mines. In the south, and to a greater extent in the north, 
where roads were poorer and ravines steeper and more difficult, 
mule pack trains served the purpose. 21 

Express Companies and the Telegraph. — The heavy staging in 
California was rarely adequate to move the goods, and never safe 
for moving gold, nor was the government postal system of the 
interior sufficient for its business ; so local express companies were 
organized both to carry the mail and to convey parcels. The federal 
postal system failed because of lack of pecuniary allowance for its 
maintenance in the midst of the gold-begotten high prices and enor- 
mous business. The express companies, private concerns with their 
management on the ground, came much nearer meeting the exigen- 
cies of the times. In 1853 there were twelve companies connecting 
with San Francisco. 22 Two of these, Adams and Wells Fargo, were 
extensions or branches of eastern companies. The former failed 
in California, while the interests and operations of its successful 
.rival have been very closely related to the gold and silver mining 
interests. Only the business and handsome compensation derived 
from gold mining made successful operations of express companies 
possible at that time. 

Not only was the postal business rapidly extended in the West, 
but a more speedy means of transporting information was demanded. 
Nothing was too new or expensive for California. Telegraph lines 
came long before they would have come without the influence of 
gold, and have been multiplied from the very beginning. By the 
end of the first decade, many lines connected the camps and trade 
centers with the great hub of the West at the Golden Gate; and 
other lines connected the East with the West long before the rail- 
roads were in operation. 

Water Routes. — The development of river traffic has been sug- 
gested previously. River craft very early plied the waters of every 
navigable stream in the Sacramento valley. Regular trips were 
made from San Francisco to Marysville, Coluca and Sacramento, 
the former at the head of navigation on the Feather, and the others 
at junctions of tributaries with the Sacramento. Navigation for 

21 Bancroft, H. H., "History of California," Vol. VII, pp. 151-156. 

22 Ibid., VII, pp. 145-151. 

(17) 



1 8 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

provisioning mining camps developed as far up the Umpqua 23 River 
as possible. The extensive traffic on the Missouri and its western 
feeders due to immigrants to the mines and the movement of mer- 
chandise to the same destination is told by Chittenden. 24 This river 
transportation extended to the head of navigation on the Missouri, 
Fort Benton and built that town. The business became so great 
under the increasing demands, induced by the development of min- 
ing in Montana and Idaho, that it brought on its own destruction; 
for the large and growing need of transportation facilities called 
into existence the Union and Central Pacific, which took care of the 
trade in the southern and eastern part of the route, also the Northern 
Pacific, which captured all the Upper Missouri commerce and left 
Fort Benton little reason for being. 

The Influence on the Development of Railroads. — Railroad plans 
for transcontinental lines were already made when the news of gold 
discoveries in California reached the Atlantic; but none had mate- 
rialized, because of the clashing of northern and southern rights and 
of state and federal rights. Each faction feared, if a road were 
built across the continent where the other desired it, that the latter's 
gain would be detrimental to the former. None would make con- 
cessions for the common good. So in the conflict all routes in the 
United States remained closed until 1869. The Panama route was 
determined upon and surveyed, and the contracts let before the 
influence of gold mining reached the place. But during the first 
year or two of its construction the crowds of miners demanding 
transportation across the isthmus, interfered greatly with work on 
the new railroad by calling off most of the labor. In spite of this 
hindrance, and by the aid of the stimulating demand for transporta- 
tion for the miners, road building proceeded ; and the Panama rail- 
road was completed in 1855. 25 

Roads discussed in the United States were a northern, a central 
and a southern line which finally materialized respectively as the 
Northern Pacific, the Central and Union Pacific, and the two south- 
ern routes, the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific. 

^Bancroft, H. H., "History of Oregon," Vol. II, p. 183. 

24 Chittenden, H. M., " Early Steamboat Navigation, on the Missouri 
River," 1903. 

25 Bancroft, H. H, " History of California," Vol. VI, p. 139. Otis, F. N., 
"The Isthmus of Panama," 1867, pp. 25, 36. Rodrigues, "The Panama 
Canal," 1885, pp. 10 f. 

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George D. Hubbard. 19 

Federal land grants were relied upon to build the roads, but the 
demand for them came strongly from the Far West. Until 1848, 
the only route discussed in the North was that mainly coinciding 
with the Lewis and Clark route. The South became awakened at 
the accession of territory in 1848, and still more on the announce- 
ment of gold in it. They saw the possibility of a route across all 
southern soil and terminating in the gold fields. Thus the whole 
situation changed. 26 Asa Whitney, prime mover in the Northern 
Pacific scheme, proposed to terminate the line much farther north, 
where all earlier interests had been centered for a score of years. 
Now his plan was laid aside ; and the South, plus the gold of Cali- 
fornia, constituted a force so potent that the terminus had to be 
in California. For a compromise, the line ran westward in the cen- 
tral part of the country. Another phase of the desire for a railroad 
to California had some influence in obtaining government aid. 
Under the impetus of its great wealth, the new West was develop- 
ing very rapidly. It was cut off from " The States " by deserts, 
mountains and a long sea voyage, and it faced the free open ocean. 
Bancroft records that in i860 there was talk of a political "cut off" 
and a new nation. 27 Californians felt that they had sufficient re- 
sources to go alone. But of course Congress, neither North nor 
South, would hear to this, so steps for railroad connection were rap- 
idly taken. The route finally decided upon was, in the main, one 
used by the forty-niners and others later across South Pass, through 
Salt Lake City, Ogden, along the Humboldt and over the Sierras 
down Rio Americano to Sacramento and San Francisco. This 
terminal never would have been chosen had it not been for the in- 
terest centering in California's gold. 28 This line was built from 
both ends and was finished near Ogden, Utah, in 1869, 29 while the 
Northern* Pacific was delayed until 1883. For a time during the 
discussions of route for the first railroad, the unequal pull or influ- 
ence of various mining regions seemed likely to wreck all schemes ; 
but better things came, and three distinct lines were constructed. A 
number of local lines in California and other states — stubs from the 

28 Humboldt, A. Baron von, " History of the Geography of a New Conti- 
nent," p. 77. 

27 Bancroft, H. H., " History of California," Vol. VII, pp. 532 f . 

28 Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, Vol. XVIII, pp. 497, 592. 

29 Bancroft, H. H., " History of California," Vol. VII, p. 145. Smalley, 
E. V., " History of the Northern Pacific Railroad," p. 275. 

(•9) 



20 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

main line to a mine — had been built before 1875. 30 A detailed map 
of any of the leading western lines of to-day shows clearly the 
marked influence of the distribution of the precious metals in the 
construction of the stub lines. Similar developments of branch 
roads appear in South Africa and Australia. 

The Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, with a goodly number of 
stubs and short branch lines, are responses to the call of growing 
trade and mining business in California in part, but especially in 
Arizona and New Mexico. This latter region is abundantly sup- 
plied with the precious metals in nearly all parts, but there are few 
great deposits known at present. Transportation is perhaps the 
greatest problem. Lack of construction timber and fuel are serious 
difficulties in many places, but adequate transportation would over- 
come both. Valuable mines of gold and silver have been able suc- 
cessfully to demand a railroad to enter their vicinity; but lesser ones 
are unable to obtain the desired response and hence operate, if at 
all, against heavy odds. 

It was not agriculture that called for railroads, because that 
industry was little developed when the roads came ; but by their 
presence across the semi-arid region and through many attractive 
valleys, they have made possible settlements and the extension of 
agriculture, where both would have been slow to go but for the 
transportation facilities thus afforded. 

Effects in Withdrawing Capital from Other Industries. — Much 
of the capital acquired by mining was expended in further develop- 
ing the industry, invested in city property, or in developing other 
local industries. But this was not sufficient. Not only did wealth 
migrate from the mines into the industries and structures of the 
cities, but it came from the East into California, and later into Colo- 
rado, and now into every state. Nor did it flow in trickling streams 
into the mining industry. It came with prodigality and reckless- 
ness, and entered all industries, but especially those tributary to 
mining. Gold and silver mines have always had a secret cord on 
the purses of the people. Because of this influence over men and 
their stores, money had been withdrawn from almost every industry 
and put into stocks of gold mines, depriving the robbed industry of 
an equal amount of its earnings. 31 Even the English have responded 

30 Bancroft, H. H., " History of California," Vol. VII, pp. 542-592. 

31 Porter, R. P., " The West from the Census of 1880," p. 374. 

(20) 



George D. Hubbard. 21 

with capital for American mines and often recklessly. So great is 
the power of attraction that millions have thus been removed from 
legitimate enterprises, both in eastern United States and in England, 
and sunk in western gold and silver mines. Not infrequently the 
properties thus endowed were wild-cat. Other millions have been 
wisely invested and are now paying good interest. 

Influence on Technical Education. — Putting a broad construction 
on the term industry or occupation, it is possible to speak in this 
section of mining education and of mining schools of the United 
States. Of course, gold and silver alone should not be given all 
the credit for their development; but if the percentage of technical 
processes and of experts employed in mining the precious metals 
be compared with those in the whole mining industry of the country, 
these two metals will have a very creditable rank. Ours has come 
to be a mining nation, not because of a few abundant minerals, but 
because of many. Our rank in gold and silver has been first more 
than once in the last few years, but the place is interchangeable, 
first one of three countries leading, then another. We have attained 
this rank from almost the bottom of the list in about a half 
century, surpassing nations whose large output is the result of years 
of growth and long experience. Many technical processes and com- 
plex but adapted machines have originated in our mills because in 
them men have learned by experience what sort of combinations to 
use. 32 By experiments in the Washoe mills alone, the ore dressing 
industry of the whole country has largely benefited ; and the cost of 
training, however great, is inconsiderable compared with its impor- 
• tance and value to our mining industry. A great mass of technical 
j skill and knowledge has been rapidly acquired. Schools with ex- 
l pensive equipment and large attendance have been established in 
several of our western states in the heart of the business, and others 
in connection with old institutions in the East. A great body of 
scientific and technical literature has accumulated. No nation grap- 
ples with mining problems in a more practical way and with more 
satisfactory results than does ours. No doubt, this is in consid- 
erable measure traceable to the abundance and variety of our gold 
and silver ores and the refractoriness of so many of the associations. 
Summary. — In the words of Humboldt, "the influence of the 

82 U. S. G. S. Monog., IV, p. 121. 

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22 Relation of Mining to Associated Industries. 

mines on the progressive cultivation of the country " and the devel- 
opment of its industries " is more durable than are the mines them- 
selves." Just as mining was a great and powerful motive for immi- 
gration, so it was, and is, for industrial development. It creates 
demands for the products of agriculture and manufacturing and 
thereby stimulates and expands both. It requires transportation, 
and often causes roads and railroads to be constructed against all 
but insurmountable obstacles. It has put the industrial development 
of the West decades ahead of where it could possibly have been in 
the normal frontier development, and given its commerce and manu- 
facturing a distinctive tone. Further, it has stimulated nearly all 
industries throughout the country, increased their kinds of output 
as well as their quantity, and profoundly modified the distribution 
of hundreds of industries. 

Oberlin College, 
Oberlin, Ohio. 






(22) 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE PRECIOUS METALS 

ON AMERICAN EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY, 

CONQUEST AND POSSESSION* 



BY 



GEORGE D. HUBBARD, PH.D.f 

Early Explorations and Discoveries. Beginning with the first 
explorer who sailed across the Atlantic, "the expectation of finding 
a land rich in treasures of gold and silver or in products easily sold 
for the metals was the prevailing motive in the minds of most of the 
early discoverers and explorers." Whitney saysj the sixteenth 
century travelers had little else in mind save the recompense for 
their toils and dangers in the rich mines of the precious metals which 
they were going to discover. Thus exploration was prompted by 
the desire for gold or for the lucrative trade in gold and spices from 
the Orient. The news of immensely rich empires, and mines of gold 
and silver ceaselessly attracted Spanish exploration and conquest 
into new quarters and thereby the more rapidly and extensively 
opened up the New World to the knowledge of mankind. The 
treasure was first found, in quantities, in the vaults and temples of 
the Indian civilizations both in Mexico and in Peru ; but it was soon 
also discovered in the mines from which the natives derived it, and 
in others new even to them.§ 

Balboa, on the Isthmus in search of precious metals in 1513JI 
found gold in the hands of natives and traded for 500 pounds of it. 
Cortez on the Gulf Coast of Mexico learned of the wealth of the 
kingdom of Montezuma, and marched successfully on his capital, 
destroying the natives in vast numbers in order to effect his purpose 
and get possession of the treasure. Pizarro is said to have extorted 

* This paper is a portion of a thesis presented as a part of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree 
in Geography at Cornell University. For other parts see Scottish Geographical Magazine and later 
numbers of the Bulletin. Special thanks are given to Professors R. S. Tarr. W. F. Willcox and 
H. Ries for criticism and suggestion throughout the whole work. 

t Read before the Association of American Geographers, Baltimore, iqo8. 

% Whitney. J. D. Metallic Wealth of the United States, p. xxi. 

§ Patterson, R. H. The New Golden Age. Vol. i., pp. 422-424. 

II Ibid., pp. 339-340- 



2 The Influence of the Precious Metals on American 

from the Incas $15,000,000 worth of gold and silver, partly by peace- 
able means, but with accompanying slaughter and pillage.* These 
discoveries were of prime importance as revealing metals already 
extracted ; and they soon led to the finding of the sources. 

The Spaniards wanted gold, silver, or anything which would bring 
the precious metals easily; and by all methods they acquired about 
$250,000 per annum, chiefly gold, during the first thirty years (1492- 
1521). But during the conquests of Mexico and Peru, and for ten 
years thereafter, the acquisition of precious metals, now largely 
silver, rose rapidly to about $3,000,000 per annum. So far, essen- 
tially all the wealth obtained by the Spaniards in America was gotten 
by conquest, plunder, tribute or barter. Practically no mining had 
been done prior to 1546, when the fabulously rich silver mines at 
Potosi in Bolivia were discovered, together with other mines of both 
silver and gold. And now, by forced native labor, and negro labor, 
the production of silver took another quick stride and rose to an 
average of $10,000,000 per annum until 1600. f 

Near the close of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits had spread 
across Mexico, gotten control of Lower California and discovered the 
pearl fisheries of the warm adjacent seas. Spanish settlers followed, 
and these discovered auriferous gravels, the southern end of that 
long line of gravel deposits extending north and south across the 
United States and Canada. Settlements grew, and agriculture began. 
The Indians harassed the settlers until their complaints brought a 
small army from headquarters, who pursued the Indians into the 
mountains and in 1771 discovered very rich placers 4 Some 2,000 
persons rushed in, within a few months, and the deposits were exten- 
sively developed. As in the case of California later, lack of provi- 
sions hindered development. It is interesting to note how near these 
developments led them to California, and how close they came to 
making discoveries that would have profoundly modified the course 
of history in the United States in 1846-48, and subsequently. 

Two Motives impelled the Spanish. In the course of events 
connected with the Spanish occupation of America two motives 
prompted action, motives often operating in the same mind. One 
was the avowed purpose of the religious orders to promulgate their 
religion among the natives ; the other, the ceaseless attraction exerted 



* Ibid., p. 340 ; also Bancroft, H. H ; , Mexico, Vol. 3, pp. 571-2 ; Prescott, W. H., The 
Conquest of Peru, Vol 1, pp, 433, 467. 

+ Patterson, R. H., The New Golden Age, Vol. 1, pp. 422-424. 

% Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 347-350. 



Exploration, Discovery, Conquest and Possession 3 

by treasure upon the military.* But, unfortunately, the Jesuits were 
sometimes influenced by the knowledge of the occurrence of silver 
and gold. While the chief missionary of a party may have had pure 
motives, his helpers often completely forgot their specific work and 
went where treasure bade them go. With this double motive, explo- 
ration and conquest rapidly disclosed the New World to the Old. It 
is not our purpose to trace the influence of the missionary spirit in 
America. As for the other influence, so far as it operated through 
the Spanish, and aside from the above mentioned results, its sole 
effects in America were the enriching of a comparatively small num- 
ber of Spanish adventurers and the gorgeous maintenance of both 
Church and State. The commonalty suffered from two conditions, 
both born in part of greed for gold and silver, — a cramped and re- 
stricted trade, and the tyranny, despotism and avarice of officials. 

Effects of Greed for Gold and Silver. This very greed for 
the gold was one of the causes that operated to scatter the energy of 
the Spanish over Southern North America and all South America, 
and to prevent their developing cities or fixed industries. They con- 
quered, primarily for its treasure, a territory larger than they could 
master and administer ; and as a result, their occupancy was irregular 
and short lived over a considerable portion of their possessions.! 
The thirst for gold made the adventurers wild and led them a 
romantic career in the New World. They disdained agriculture, 
neglected singularly fertile plains, and thwarted legitimate com- 
merce. They directed their steps wherever they heard tales of 
abundant treasure. And it was in these pursuits, so eagerly and 
mercilessly carried on, that they destroyed the native population and 
thus greatly lessened the value of their possessions by denuding the 
land of its native races. J Had this industrious and rudely cultured 
race of Indians been conserved and properly dealt with, the Span- 
iards might have had a loyal colony instead of a rebellious vassalage. 
And, further, the Indians might have lasted some time as tillers of 
the soil, if given careful and wise supervision, and thus have pro- 
duced abundant harvests of products desired in Europe, thereby 
adding extensive and lucrative commerce to Spain's advantage. And 
what would have been Spain's gain, would also have been England's 
and America's. 

Hypothetical Cases. Whether the absence of the treasure 

* Bourne, E. G., Spain in America, pp. 170-175 ; Keller, Colonization, pp. 176-8, 203. 

t Ibid., p. 201. 

% Ibid., p. 271 ; Patterson, R. H., The New Golden Age, Vol. 1, pp. 337-8. 



1 

4 The Influence of the Precious Metals on American 

would have made the Spanish even endurable masters or not, is a 
question ; but it is certain that, having once scented it, their avarice 
knew no bounds, and destruction and bloodshed followed in their 
wake. Had their course been so different as to have perpetuated 
their occupation of Mexico as long as they held Cuba, American 
history would have been quite another story. And with a loyal 
Spanish colony south of us as successful as the British Colony north 
of us, our history and development might have been considerably 
different. What has been said of the Spanish in Mexico applies in 
principle to the Spanish in Peru and Bolivia. We might have had 
more valuable neighbors in these countries. What might have been 
is hard to tell, but it is safe to assert that the conditions assumed 
above would have yielded results very different from those which 
have passed into history. Spanish power in America was intimately 
connected with the output of the precious metals. When the treas- 
ure flowed freely, Spain flourished both at home and abroad; and 
when it slackened, her power withered. Probably without the 
precious metals, her course would have been less offensive, and her 
influence less pernicious. 

English and Spanish Compared. South American mines were 
worked three-quarters of a century before there was an English 
settlement on the American continent. A century of Spanish explo- 
ration, gold hunting, christianizing and a kind of colonizing, in the 
South had been completed before the occupation of the northeastern 
seaboard began ; then followed a century of settlement and explora- 
tion along the North Atlantic. While, in individual cases, some 
exploration and exploitation was done by the English immigrants in 
the vain hope of finding wealth in gold or silver, as colonists they 
were actuated by other motives. Not finding gold, they were not 
scattered through the mountains, but became much more of a solid 
unit than did the Spanish. Other factors, however, than the absence 
of gold operated against their becoming scattered. Since Spain had 
laid claim to so much of the South, the English, when ready to 
explore and settle, were restricted to the so-called less desirable 
parts.* Had there been easily gotten mineral wealth discovered in 
the Appalachian hills and valleys in the early days, there would have 
been a rush of adventurers at first, with fewer fixed and staid settle- 
ments. Perhaps it would have been roving Spanish, and not English, 
along the Atlantic coast. Hardships under the less settled conditions- 
would greatly have surpassed those of the early colonists as it was, 

* Keller, Colonization, pp. 178-80. 



Exploration, Discovery, Conquest and Possession 5 

or even those of California in 1849 an d 1850. One might well ask, 
what would our history have been had there been abundance of 
precious metals in Xew England and the Old Appalachians. Of 
course, ultimately the result would have been the development of the 
country ; but its possession undoubtedly would have been different. 
Again, suppose the Spanish had not found treasure in the South. 
Well does Whitney* suggest, "How different might have been Ameri- 
can history had there been settlements in the Mexican and South 
American States instead of silver." No doubt the distribution of 
gold and silver found response in the distribution of the nations 
in America in the early days. This is never more clearly seen than 
when the profoundly different distribution is imagined. 

The French. The French in America are usually thought of as 
a people with very slight predilections for the precious metals. They 
were led by other motives. But we are told that they explored 
extensively for gold and silver in 1719-20, about the junction of the 
Missouri and the Mississippi rivers, but, of course, with no positive 
results. Had they found the object of their quest in the region, the 
story of French exploration, occupation and possession would have 
needed another chapter. 

Summary to 1848. Thus it becomes apparent that the desire 
for the precious metals was an active agent in the explorations 
carried on by the early voyagers ; that the distribution of gold and 
silver led the searchers into nearly all parts of America south of the 
thirtieth parallel of north latitude, and aided in scattering the energy 
of the Spanish over too large a territory; that greed and avarice, 
finding a fertile soil in the acquisition of American precious metals, 
caused the Spanish to adopt and maintain a policy toward the natives 
and toward her colonists both cruel and pernicious ; a policy, detri- 
mental to the United States through our relations with Mexico ; that 
the lack of gold and silver in the Appalachians has had an influence 
for good, especially on the English colonists, and through them on 
the conquest and possession of the northeastern United States ; and 
that the finding of treasure and the increasing production of gold and 
silver have stimulated geographic exploration and discovery. 

The amount of production of gold and silver continued to rise, 
and the cost to decline from time to time by the introduction of 
improved processes. It is stated that the production of gold and 
silver in the New World in 1800 had risen to about $50,000,000 per 
annum. It is also known that the production of the United States 

* Whitney, J. D., Metallic Wealth in the United States, p. xxi. 



6 The Influence of the Precious Metals on American 

at that time was scarcely one-third of a million, and mostly gold, 
per annum ; yet, indirectly, the production in other American States 
has aided the United States and has modified early American history 
perceptibly. 

The California Gold. Up to the discovery of gold in California 
the Pacific side of the continent had remained almost an uninhabited 
region save for the scattered Franciscan missionary posts ; and 
unvisited except by a few scientific expeditions that crossed the 
desert and mountain wastes, by whalers who occasionally touched 
the coast, and by trappers and fur traders who moved up and down 
the streams and along the coast. The interior was visited even less. 
Knowledge concerning the whole region was very meager. The 
few expeditions brought back a little information concerning strips 
of country actually crossed, and the trappers and fur traders knew 
the courses of the streams, but the real opening up of the country 
and the discovery of its resources, agricultural as well as mineral, 
had scarcely begun in 1848. Transportation was very difficult, food 
all but wanting, water restricted to widely scattered points, and 
Indians were hostile. No advantages to be gained by crossing were 
known. The greatness of the uninhabited region required almost 
prohibitive provisioning of expeditions purposing to cross; and the 
pressure of population from the east had not yet reached a sufficient 
degree to push the frontier into the deserts and mountains. 

But with the discovery of the wealth buried so slightly in the 
sands of the Sierras, was also found the incentive sufficient to. induce 
men to brave the difficulties presented by a long land journey, or to 
risk the perilous voyage of six months around Cape Horn to reach 
the otherwise inaccessible California. Incidental to getting into 
California, more exploration of the interior was done in one summer 
than had ever been done before, and more than probably would have 
been done in the normal course of events in a score or two of years 
to come. 

The fur traders had worked out many routes, but rarely did they 
point the way entirely across from the Mississippi to the Pacific. 
Fremont's report in 1845, embodying careful topographic and descrip- 
tive work, was a further contribution to the scanty fund of informa- 
tion concerning routes westward. The Oregon trail* was worked 
out, and used prior to the gold discoveries by several bands who 
later, in part, at least, figured in California. Perhaps the Sante Fe 



Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. 






Exploration, Discovery, Conquest and Possession 7 

trail* from St. Louis to Sante Fe, and the Gila and Spanish trails 
from there to southern California were as important as any of the 
older trails. These routes were almost entirely established prior to 
1848, hence, their discovery can by no means be ascribed to the 
influence of this metal; but they were little known and little used 
save by the fur traders until 1849. During that summer trails be- 
came roads, and bridle paths highways, cut-offs were found, new 
watering-places discovered and in many ways the courses improved. 
The trail to Salt Lake City through South Pass was used; but, 
instead of going on northwestward to the Columbia and Oregon, a 
new trail was worked out down the Humboldt River to Humboldt 
Sink, then up the back of the Sierras, and down the many ravines 
on the western face. The route, a well-woven cord nearly to the 
eastern slope of these mountains, seemed to fray out into many 
strands leading down the gulches on the western side. The American 
River, down which Fremont traveled,f is fairly typical in the hard- 
ships presented. It is astonishing what difficulties men and even 
women and children will surmount when under the influence of the 
gold fever. 

Mention must also be made of the exploration of routes, mainly 
by water, which came into use on the advent of California gold, and 
led from the Atlantic ports to Mexico and Central America and then 
by stream or on the land across to the Pacific, and thence to Cali- 
fornia. The route with the shortest land section crossed the Isthmus 
of Panama, and was found very early both by passengers and freight. 
Other routes crossed at Tehuantepec, Nicaragua and from Tampico 
across northern Mexico to Mazatlan and other Pacific ports, all 
resulting in the exploration of sections of the country, but, neither 
in occupation nor in possession, any more than the crossing of the 
arid plains and the mountains, resulted at first in their occupation. 
Routes discovered and developed by emigrants in search of gold at 
the end of their journey, differ in this respect from those worked out 
by the ordinary overland emigrant. Only the discouraged or ex- 
hausted halt on the former, while the latter soon become enlivened 
by settlements of those who find places "good enough for them" and 
turn aside to occupy. 

Exploration by Prospectors. This pioneer exploration, dis- 
cussed above, took place during the early days of the gold excitement 
in California ; but as the richer deposits became exhausted, the pros- 

* Semple, E. C. American History and Its Geographical Conditions, Ch. X and XI. 

t Fremont, J. C, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, pp. 230 f. 



8 The Influence of the Precious Metals on American Exploration 

pector set out, impelled by a continuous vision of "nuggets." He 
pushed back into the interior wilderness, across deserts, over ridges, 
into glens, gulches, parks, and long stately valleys; he climbed 
mountains, crossed divides and traced streams from end to end. 
While his explorations were not scientific, and his results were not 
recorded, his discoveries were valuable even aside from the treasure 
they revealed, because definite reports of his discoveries often got 
into possession of others; and the latter followed him out to make 
new settlements or to occupy fields which he had only viewed. And 
even in the absence? of positive statement of valuable finds of minerals, 
lands, forest, or game, the report that so-and-so had been through 
certain valleys or over certain mountains or had been exploring in a 
named locality or direction, served to turn the attention thitherward, 
and make one feel somewhat acquainted with the places beyond his 
more complete knowledge. It all aided in the conquest of valley 
and hillside, spring and water course, to other purposes than the 
maintenance of wild animals and savages. Desire to find gold, and 
the reports of gold and silver found all over the West, prompted 
further exploration, and led to discoveries, not only of precious 
metals, but of many geographic features, streams, mountains, valleys, 
and plains, and of many other less attractive but more remunerative 
resources of the region. Under the powerful stimulus, exploration 
was very active, and the knowledge of the West extended phenomen- 
ally. 

Scientific Exploration of Alaska. Nor should this section 
be concluded without reference to the influence Alaskan gold has had 
upon exploration. It played no part in the discovery, nor in our 
gaining possession of the peninsula, but since the announcement of 
its presence the exploration of the country by prospectors and miners, 
and by those who would enter the carrying trade to assist the miners, 
has been very vigorously pushed. In a much closer way careful 
surveying and mapping have gone on rapidly under the supervision 
of the United States Geological Survey, and at the expense of the 
Federal Government. Of course, this work is not done alone in 
response to the influence of gold and silver ; but the distribution of 
the work both in Alaska and in the States shows how influential 
have been the mineral deposits in determining the areas to be sur- 
veyed first. Gold and silver have played an important part, as have 
other minerals. 

Ohio State University, 
Columbus, Ohio. 



! 



[Reprinted from the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, February, 1912.] 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE PRESENCE, DIS- 
COVERY AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE 
PRECIOUS METALS IN AMERICA ON 
THE MIGRATION OF PEOPLE* 



BY 



GEORGE D. HUBBARD 

Oberlin College 



In a previous sectiony was traced the exploration carried on by 
the three leading nations in America, — Spanish, English and French. 
The exploring parties in some cases became so large and numerous 
that they really constituted a migration, a flood of immigration. It 
is difficult to establish a line that will properly delimit explorers and 
adventurers from immigrants, but for all practical purposes those 
who come and roam about with no intention of remaining in a place 
may be classed in the first group ; those who come ostensibly to re- 
main, even though not permanently in one place, may be put in the 
second group. A migration has the idea of mass movement and for 
a more or less permanent home, while the exploring party is small 
and never intends to abide. 

Spanish Migrations. Myerslj: speaks of the migration of ad- 
venturers and colonists from Spain to America in the Sixteenth 

* This paper is a portion of the thesis presented as a part of the requirement for the Ph.D. degree 
in Geography at Cornell University. For other parts see this Bulletin, Vol. XLII, pp. 594-602; Scott. 
Geog. Mag., Vol. XXVI, pp. 449-466; Vol. XXVII, pp. 417 and 470; Bull. Phil. Geog. Soc, Vol. IX, 
pp. 1-22; Vol. X, pp. 36-50. Special thanks are herein expressed for criticism and suggestion given 
by Professors R. S. Tarr, H. Ries, and W. F. Willcox, throughout the whole work. 

t Bulletin, Vol. XLII, pp. 594-602. 

* Myers, P. V. W. Gen. Hist., 1889, pp. 517, 518. 

97 



98 Precious Metals as a Geographic 

Century as to be compared only with that to California and the 
West in 1849 an d subsequently. It was more scattered in destina- 
tion, and less scattered in source. Moved by the stories of rich 
deposits, the desire for adventure and for a new home, thousands 
of Spanish and Portuguese took passage for the new continent. 
Because the treasure could be found in so many places, and because 
gold and silver had the greatest attraction, they occupied nearly all 
parts of South America and Mexico, and even established them- 
selves in territory constituting at present southwestern United States. 
The mines in America, in these early days, drew no small part of 
their workers from the mines in Spain, although many of the labor- 
ers were Indians and Negroes ; and, inasmuch as the precious metals 
were found well distributed over South America and Mexico, the 
-colonists, scattered over all this region, have given an Iberian color 
to the life and activities of the whole territory. 

English Immigration. South American mines were worked 
nearly a century, before English immigration made a beginning on 
the North Atlantic coast and spread westward across the lowlands - 
to the foot-hills from New England to Georgia ; and, when the Eng- 
lish immigration began, gold and gold hunting seem to have had 
little power over it. Other ends than wealth were sought. The 
men in that stream of colonists were almost uniformly in search of 
permanent homes surrounded by agriculture, lumbering, fishing, and 
the beginnings of manufacturing. How fortunate for these colonists 
that they found no gold and silver in the Appalachians, for probably, 
had they found deposits, their settlements would have been preceded 
by Spanish miners' camps, and their standards of life by those 
somewhat opposed to the arts of peace and husbandry. 

Just as gold played no part in .the immigration of the early Eng- 
lish colonists to America, so the desire for gold was not the in- 
fluence that led those waves of families and civilization across the 
eastern barriers and to the plains and prairies of the Mississippi 
Valley. Likewise, the expansion into the first row of States west of 
that great river, a growth partly antecedent to the discovery of gold 
in California, apparently cannot be traced to the influence of the 
precious metals. Nor can those several western movements which 
stretched to the Pacific coast prior to 1849, really be said to have 
had anything to do with gold. The Mormons were forced from 
behind to cross the great plains. The Oregon immigrants of 1843 
were induced to go by the prospect of lucrative trade in furs. A 
scattered emigration from the eastern and central States sifted a 



Factor in the Migration of People 99 

sparse population of hardy pioneers through the mountains or 
around Cape Horn into California, Washington, and Oregon. But 
the motive was not in the gold. The results of all this fragmentary 
and heterogeneous westward movement of the people played its part 
in 1849-1853, for, when the news of the brilliant discoveries along 
the American River went abroad, the response first began among 
those who had found their way into the vicinity for other purposes 
than gold digging. 

Local Effects in 1848. Californians were at first incredulous 
of the discovery, and for three months the news did not reach points 
outside the valley. Accordingly, the response did not begin until 
April, 1848. Then there began a cautious ingathering, which was 
quickly followed by an apprehension of the magnitude of the dis- 
coveries, a quicker dissemination of the news in ever widening 
circles and a hasty response to the influence of the finds. ■ The 
widening circle of information could travel no faster than man 
could move from one place to another; hence, where geographic 
conditions made travel easy the circle enlarged rapidly, but on the 
Sierra side its expansion was greatly restricted. Consequently, the 
first rush of eager miners came from the California Valley and the 
limiting slopes of the mountains into the gulches of as many of the 
Sierra streams as were known to possess gold-bearing gravels. 
California- Americans to the number of 2,000 and California-Spanish- 
Mexicans and Indians, in the aggregate about 3,000, were at work 
by the middle of the summer. The population of the mining camps 
was varied, to be sure, during the first summer, but no more so than 
was that of California and the immediate vicinity at the discovery of 
gold, barring a few foreign sailors who deserted their ships in harbor. 
The cosmopolitan nature of the migration was a feature of subse- 
quent years and not of the first. As soon as the news had time to 
get to Oregon, Northern Mexico, and the Sandwich Islands, after 
gaining credence near home, there started parties from these places, 
the Argonauts, Sonorans, and Kanakas;* and as the news of the 
discovery reached the far-off Peruvian and Chilian, so the response 
came quickly in considerable parties from each country. 

So great was the excitement in the California Valley, and so con- 
tagious the gold fever, that few escaped the effects of the epidemic. 
The main valley in close proximity to the centers of influence was 
pretty well drained to the gulches before the close of the season of 
1848. By June, three-fourths of the male population of San Fran- 

* Bancroft, H. H. Hist of Calif.. 1884, 7 %'ols., Vol. VI, p. 7 t. 



100 Precious Metals as a Geographic 

cisco had gone. The Star, of San Francisco, May 2J, 1849, con- 
tained the following vivid description : 

"Stores are closed, places of business vacated, houses ar.e tenantless, various 
kinds of mechanical labor suspended or given up entirely, — everything wears a 
desolate and somber look, everywhere all is dull, monotonous, dead." 

Newspapers ceased publication by June; town council and the 
sanctuary services ended; sailors, and even officers, and sometimes 
captains, left ship in the harbor. Mexicans and Americans were, 
equally affected; townsmen and farmers equally impetuous; judges, 
priests, doctors, alcaldes, criminals and their keepers, soldiers and 
their officers, — all classes went. Towns and farms Vere equally 
depopulated all along the valley and coast to San Diego.* 

Gold and Silver Producing Regions are Mountainous. But 
beyond the valley on the east for a thousand miles lay mountains 
and deserts; and on the west, the sea. Few miners could come 
from adjoining territory. It was uninhabited. The gulches, them- 
selves, and their placers were in the mountains, and the quartz veins 
from which these placers and essentially all others of the West 
were derived, lay farther up in rugged, wild, mountain masses. 
This topographic distribution is a result of the origin and nature of 
gold deposits. The metal occurs in veins and fissures, hence in 
regions of metamorphism, folding, and faulting; in regions where 
rocks may contain heated waters, often associated with intrusions or 
with lava v flows, sometimes not yet cold.f Silver occurs in similar 
regions and for the same reasons. Inasmuch as rocks which have 
been subjected to these dynamic processes are metamorphosed and 
often thereby hardened, and as, with the crustal disturbances, uplift 
has also occurred, the country, favored with the precious metals, is 
usually rough, high, mountainous, and difficult of access. Reference 
to lists of producing States, and a comparison of these lists with a 
physical map of the United States, will make it clear that almost all 
the gold and silver produced in the country comes from two widely 
separated mountainous areas. 

When the gold of the Southern Appalachian States was found, 
mining began in the midst of a well settled region, in which food- 
producing industries were well established, and men, although busy 
with other work, were right on the ground. Further, the deposits 
were not extensive; hence, far reaching migrations did not occur. 
But when the California gold was found, and, later, when both 

* Bancroft, ibid., pp. 59, 263. Shinn, C H., Mining Camps, pp. 109-114. 
+ Am. Inst. Min. Eng. (1903), Vol. XXXIII, pp. 79 of. 



Factor in the Migration of People 101 

metals were discovered in other Western States, the newness, rough- 
ness, inaccessibility, and distance to centers of population had suc- 
cessfully restrained any considerable accumulation of people and 
any development of other industries. Consequently, the rich and 
extensive deposits, by virtue of their geographic position and asso- 
ciations, did not find at hand labor and supplies for their exploitation ; 
and, when the news of their discovery went forth, it called out a 
great migration; a migration from distant regions where labor was 
more abundant. 

Excitement in Eastern United States. Word of the unusual 
stir on the Pacific did not reach the Atlantic coast until late in 1848, 
because of the great distance and difficult transportation ; and, dur- 
ing the winter and early spring of 1849, the news was spread far 
afield, until by the close of summer of that year knowledge of the 
mining possibilities there had become world-wide. No such wide- 
spread excitement had ever been known before ; and nothing so far- 
reaching and influential has occurred since, although just as great 
discoveries of wealth have been made. The sweeping force of the 
craze arose from the remoteness of its source, and the consequent 
novelty and wildness, and from the richness of the deposits compared 
with anything known before. It was beyond the dreams of the 
ancients. 

As the fact took hold of the people in eastern United States, 
thousands determined to go. Whitney conjectures that within a 
few months, some 50,000 of the healthiest and most energetic young 
men of the nation were on their way to California. So strong was 
the desire to go, that many started by one of the sea routes before' 
the winter was over ; and as the weather permitted, others departed 
by the land routes, until almost every town throughout the Eastern 
States had contributed a representative to the great army now clos- 
ing in on California. Whitney estimates that 100,000 reached the 
region during the year 1849, among whom were citizens of every 
State in the Union. The estimate was probably a little generous.* 
Land routes were popular and supplied as many miners as the sea 
routes, but not so continuous a stream ; because most were pro- 

* Whitney, J. D., Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Ed., Vol. 4, p. 701. Shinn, C. H., Mining Camps, 
p. 109. R. H. Patterson (The New Golden Age, Vol. t, pp. 108-9) estimates the white population of Cali- 
fornia, in 1850, at less than 100,000, and quotes the census of Nov., 1852, at 170,000 whites. Shinn 
(.Mining Camps, p. 132) says: " In December, 1849, there were 53,000 Americans in California." and a 
few pages later, states that in 1849 35,000 persons came to California by sea, and 42,000 by land. Not 
many had left for other fields as early as the close of 1849. Perhaps as much credence should be given 
to Whitney as to Shinn, who presents considerable discrepancy in his own statements. 



102 Precious Metals as a Geographic 

hibitively closed during the winter, while one might sail anytime 
during the twelve months. 

Land Routes. Overland routes had been known for years prior 
to 1848.* The fur traders had worked them out, and the explorers 
had mapped some of them; but it should be remembered, that they 
were not made for continuous traffic across the continent. The 
connecting passes and high level routes had not become well estab- 
lished because so little used. Even the well ordered trails, formerly 
used primarily for freight, now became great passenger routes. 

A common starting point was at the elbow of the Missouri River, 
but several towns in the vicinity became outfitting towns : St. Joseph, 
Westport, Leavenworth, Ft. Kearney, Independence, Kansas City, 
and even Omaha became important commercial centers in the effort 
to meet the needs of the trade. The northern routes to Laramie 
and South Pass conducted rather more emigrants westward that 
the southern route to Sante Fe, probably because the gold was 
mainly in the northern half of California, and because the emigrants 
did not know, or at least realize, that a longer journey, but at a 
much less altitude, bv Sante Fe might bring them to their desired 
grounds equally as soon. Possibly the aridity and lack of settle- 
ments tended to keep people from the southern route, while the re- 
cruiting station at Salt Lake City offered a chance to rest by. the 
northern line. The routes followed by the land emigrants through 
Salt Lake City led through rugged mountain passes and over long 
desert stretches ; and then, as the pioneers approached the eastern 
flank of the Sierras in the rush to be first into the coveted gravels, 
they began to scatter and thus were compelled to use poorer, less 
traveled trails both up the slopes and through the passes of the crest. 
Having passed the summit, they scattered down the gulches from the 
Pitt in the north to the Tuolumne in the south. This brought them 
first to the upper ends of the steep, deep, defiles whose floors farther 
down were auriferous gravels. 

These northern routes were beset by Indians. As long as the 
migration consisted of the fur-traders and an occasional settler, the 
natives cared little ; but when the glamor and attractiveness of gold 
brought thousands of prairie schooners sailing across their grounds 

* Chittenden, H. M. Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, 1903. 
Chittenden, H. M. Hi=t. of Amer., Fur Trade of The Far West, 1902. 
Fremont, J. C. Report of The Expl. Exp. to Rocky Mts. in 1842, &c, 1845. 
Lewis and Clark. Explorations in The North West. 
Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. 
Semple, E. C. Amer. Hist, and Its Geographic Conditions, 1903. 



Factor in the Migration of People 103 

in one summer, and when towns and roads and all that drives out 
wilderness crowded in and claimed their habitat, they became rest- 
less, then revengeful. It only needed the lack of watchfulness on 
the part of the government, whose attention was elsewhere at the 
time, to permit the outbreak of trouble and hostilities beween the 
Indians and the settlers in 1862. 

Those who came by the southern route past Sante Fe, along the 
Gila River or the Spanish Trail, and across the Colorado River at 
Yuma into Southern California had to endure more desert, found a 
warmer climate, less rainfall, less forest, and had no great altitudes 
to traverse. They came into the California Valley and swung north- 
westward through the tule-covered swampland, or along the western 
foot of the mountains, and entered the gulches at their lower or 
western ends. They were led through territory already appropri- 
ated by Mexicans ; and after the first summer, had not only the 
wicked Apache Indians to watch, but also the outlaw or the expelled 
Mexican miner who frequented these roads and robbed the traveler. 
Returning miners who presumably had in possession at least samples 
of California's treasures, proved most fascinating bait. Robbing 
became quite a business under the superior temptation presented by 
the returning miners, or by those going to new fields with their 
accumulated wealth in their belts. And not only was robbery com- 
mitted, but occasionally entire parties were put out of the way by 
outlaws lurking \n the defiles through which the caravan must pro- 
ceed. In California, express companies abandoned their routes, 
because their goods so endangered the lives of their drivers. Rob- 
bing and murder were not local features but occurred on most of 
the trails and even on the highways between the mines and their 
trading centers. 

The water routes worked out under the lead of gold were varied; 
but those broken at the Isthmus gave at least a possibility of a 
shorter time period than either the overland or Cape Horn route, 
hence they were always overcrowded. Until 1855, when the Panama 
railroad began duty, more emigrants, bound for California, arrived 
at the Atlantic ports than Isthmian transportation could be found 
for ; and many more succeeded in crossing and reached the western 
ports than could find passage on the Pacific vessels to California, 
partly because so many Pacific ships were tied up at San Francisco. 
Consequently hundreds, probably thousands, were delayed between 
the two oceans, and became the prey of malarious diseases, which 
they were often unable to shake off, and therefore were never able 



104 Precious Metals as a Geographic 

to grasp, the gold they were seeking. A goodly number sailed 
around Cape Horn; and in these long journeys, subsisting on im- 
proper food, ran the risk of scurvy to which many fell victims. By 
December, 1848, the stream of emigration had become a rush. Ships 
were loaded at almost every Atlantic port. Vessels were drawn 
from the whaling business and from all kinds of trade greatly to 
the disarrangement of other commercial lines.* 

Gold Created Great Migration. When one compares the 
small trickling stream of migration to the Far West prior to 1848 
with the mighty river which surged through the passes and deluged 
the deserts between 1849 an ^ 1856, he arrives at an expression for 
the magnitude of the influence emanating from the California 
gravels. Nor should the numerical response alone be taken as the 
measure of the influence. The obstacles to overcome, because the 
gold occurred in a far away mountain wilderness, were gigantic; 
over 3,000 miles by land for the far easterner; 2,000 miles for the 
prairie farmer ; deserts, sand and dust, mountains and forest, snows 
and exposure, three or four months of severe hardship and pri- 
vation; or, if by water, exposed for as long a time to dangers by 
sea; the sacrifice of home and its associations and comforts; the 
denial of friends, business and pleasures ; and finally the expense of 
all this journey with only a hope at the end. Truly, tremendous, 
must have been that power over the lives of men to induce such 
enthusiasm and excitement, and to make men willing to submit 
themselves and often their families to such hardships. Chittendenf 
justly styles the movement as one of the most wonderful migra-" 
tions of people on record. 

Those going by sea were almost entirely from the coast regions, 
while those of the interior waited for spring to open up the land 
route. The response was strongest throughout the great Missisippi 
Valley, perhaps, because many of these people had moved once 
within the generation and were thus more susceptible to the moving 
fever than those farther east; perhaps, because they were nearer 
the gold fields. 

Yet not only did the people of the eastern United States catch 

* H. H. Bancroft (Hist, of Calif., Vol. VI, pp. 121-5) gives the following figures attesting the 
volume of emigration from Eastern United States by sea: From six Atlantic ports between the dates 
of December 14, 1848, and January t8, 1849, 61 vessels carrying an average of 50 persons set sail. 
In the month of February, 1849, 60 vessels weighed anchor in New York Harbor loaded with California 
passengers, and 70 more in the harbors of Boston and Philadelphia. During the winter of 1849-50, 
250 vessels sailed from Atlantic ports for California, 45 of which arrived in San Francisco Bay on the 
same day. 
t Chittenden, H. M. Early Steamboat Navigation on The Missouri River, 1903, Vol, I, pp. 173, 4. 



Factor in the Migration of People 105 

the gold fever and respond to the call ; but, in the latter part of 1848 
and during 1849, some 2,000 immigrants reached California from 
Oregon and Washington; and by July, 1849, i 5j 000 foreigners from 
Mexico, Chili, Peru, and other Pacific States had arrived. New 
Holland, Australia, the Marquesas Islands, and even China each 
sent its quota. Just a year from the discovery of gold, a flood of 
European emigrants, mostly British, arrived to try their fortunes.* 
In fact, nearly every civilized land was represented in the diggings 
of California during the course of the first five years. The South- 
ern Appalachians happily sent to the West many men who knew the 
processes of placer mining, and found in California a larger free- 
dom in which local mining institutions were rapidly developing.f 
European mining regions sent squads of miners trained in con- 
servative methods of mining and disciplined in knowledge of camp 
life and organization, who contributed both to the common fund in 
their adopted country. Many miners from the south brought along 
a few negroes, thus adding another element to the ample heter- 
ogeneity of the mass collected around the mining centers of Cali- 
fornia. 

Japan's stolidity under the almost universal excitement is some- 
what remarkable ; but it is asserted by Bancroft^ that she was 
almost absolutely indifferent to all the world's bustle and flurry ; and 
the almost total absence of the Japanese from California until many 
years after bears silent testimony to his indifference. With China, 
the case was very different. Either in direct response to the in- 
fluence of gold in the rocks, or else with a desire to engage in some 
other business than mining, but tributary to it, her people came ; 
3 in 1848, 700 in 1849, over 3,000 in 1850, as many more in 1851, 
and about 10,000 in 1852, so that by the opening of 1853 a ^ least 
20,000 Chinese were in the State. Then the incoming rapidly de- 
clined^ A great many arrived from the Hawaiian Islands and easily 
became the menial class. They were accustomed to it, and were 
willing, when there arose a need for such work, to be laborers of the 
lowest class. Moreover, the fact that gold had been acquired with 
simple, cheap equipment, and that no one had been able to hire 
laborers in the placers for what such laborers easily ran the chance 
of making when working for themselves, had given rise to a uni- 

* Patterson, R. H". The New. Golden Age, 1882, Vol. I, pp. 104, 5. 
t Shinn, C. H. Mining Camps, 1885, p. 40. 
% Bancroft, H. H. Hist, of Calif., Vol. VI, p. 124. 

$ Ibid., Vol. VII, p. 335 f; Semple, E. C, American History and its Geographical Conditiors, 
r 9°3) p. 319- 



106 Precious Metals as a Geographic 

versal aristocracy with no true laboring class. When, owing to 
changed mining conditions, such a class became necessary, the ports 
of China were nearer in time, expense, and hardship than were the 
Eastern States, hence the Chinaman stepped in and became the 
common drudge.* 

Prior to the discovery of gold in California, the Spanish-Mexicans 
were coming into the valley in greater numbers than the Americans. 
The query might well arise, would this condition have continued, 
had not the new mining industry invited the thousands to immi- 
grate? And had it continued, would not the Americans, when the 
time came for their expansion, have found little ^desirable land un- 
occupied? The discoveries seem from this point of view to have 
been very timely. 

Increase of Population. No statement of the increase of 
population in California will portray the phenomenal growth better 
than can be done with a few figures. Each year before 1848, a few 
had come until, by the summer of 1845, J us t prior to any emigration 
which could possibly be ascribed to the influence of gold, the State 
contained 2,000 Americans and as many Mexicans. In December 
of the same year there were 6,000; in July 1849, 15,000 and in De- 
cember, 53,000. In June 1850, the total white population was 
92,597 and in November, 1852, according to the census taken that 
month, it amounted to 269,000, of which about 30,000 were Indians, 
20,000 Chinese and 2,000 negroes.f The center of population in 
the United States migrated 81 miles westward during the decade 
1850-1860, the movement being about 50 per cent, larger than that 
of preceding decades, and a result of the emigrating impulse that 
was filling up the far western territory. 

This same phenomenal growth of population has been witnessed 
in most of the newly discovered gold regions. In Alaska, the Nome 
coast furnishes an illustration where the conditions were even harder 
to meet than those of California. On January 1, 1899, a few Eski- 
mo huts and one or two sod houses for white men were the only 
human habitations along 60 miles of coast. In June, a dozen or 
score of tents housed the entire population, and in October, 5,000 
whites were dwelling on the beach. J Another illustration comes 
from Australia. Gold was discovered in Victoria in 185 1. Previ- 
ous immigration had been rapid, but at this time it took a sudden 



* Semple, E. C, loc. cit,, p. 320. 

t Patterson, R. H. The New Golden Age, &c., Vol. I, pp. 108-9. Shinn, C. H. Mining Camps, 
p. 132. Abstract 12th Census of the United States, pp. 32-33. 

% U. S. G. S. Prelim. Rept. on Cape Nome Region, Alaska, Brooks & Schrader, p. 45. 



Factor in the Migration of People 107 

leap. In 1846, Victoria contained 33,000 people; in 185 1, 51,000; 
and in 1854, 236,000.* 

Other Effects ox Population. This rapid growth in the 
number of people was not the only effect of the precious metals on 
the population of the West. Society was masculine, and most of 
the men w r ere under forty years of age. Only men of youth and 
vigor could make the journey or bear the privations and exposure 
of camp life. Wisely, the selection in the main occurred in the 
homes, and only the young, healthy men started. The novelty and 
wildness, the adventure and risk of the journey and of mining, 
appealed to the young men more than to those who were rooted in 
business or family. Shinnf says there were but 15 women in San 
Francisco in the Spring of 1849. There were many camps with 
none at all, and others containing but one family among, say 40 
single men. Perhaps the inequality of the sexes numerically was 
greater among the Chinese than among any other nationality. In 
August, 1852, not one in a thousand among them was a woman. J 
Bancroft, after discussing the manliness and strength of character 
of the men who came under the influence of gold mining camp life, 
remarks that "the comparative superiority of the men over women 
is an expression of the law that the power of attraction due to gold 
and silver does not tear away from civilized and cultured comforts 
the same select grades of both. Nor do the mining habits develop 
the same admirable qualities in women as in men.§ Even in the 
report of the 12th Census 1900, there is shown a remarkable differ- 
ence in the number of men and of women in the mining States of 
the West, a condition not entirely due to the mining industry, but 
partly to the fact that these States constituted a part of our frontier. 
Table I summarizes the population conditions in the mining States 
and Territories and in some others. In Arizona, Idaho, Montana, 
Nevada, Wyoming and Alaska mining constituted a larger per cent, 
of the total industries of the region than in the others, and here the 
largest percentages of male population were found. In Utah, 
although mining constituted a considerable portion of the business, 
religious influences kept the percentage of males lower than in any 
other State west of the Mississippi, except Louisiana. Nevada 
presents an interesting example. In 1880, her population was 
62,266 ; and it has been declining ever since, while the percentage of 
females has been increasing. The declining industry through these 

* Nicholson, J. S. Effects of Great Discoveries of Precious Metals, 1887, pp. 38-9. *Itid. y p. 137. 

X Bancroft, H. H. Hist, of Calif., Vol. VII, pp. 335^ %/iiW., p. 715- 



108 



Precious Metals as a Geographic 



twenty years is that of mining. It seems probable that the miners 
who are going to other places are single men, while the family men 
in other occupations are remaining. If this be true, it emphasizes 
again the law that the precious metals attract for workmen, single 
men. Should it be charged that these western mining States pos- 
sess a high percentage of male population, simply because they are 
on the frontier, the answer comes from all the States not engaged 
in this kind of mining whose settlement has taken place mainly since 
California began to be filled up, and which may, for this reason, be 
considered pioneer States. Table I, part B, summarizes the con- 

Table I. Population of Gold and Silver Mining States 
Classified by Sex. 



State 


Population 1900. 


Percentage. 


Territory. 


MALE. 


FEMALE. 


TOTAL. 


MALE. 


FEMALE. 


Part A 

Western Division.... 
Arizona 


2,297,732 

7i,795 
820,531. 
295,332 

93,367 
149,842 

25,603 
104,228 
177,493 
232,985 
216,164 
141,637 
304,178 

58,184 

45,872 

208,952 
768.716 
932,40° 
564-592 
214,359 


I,793,6l7 

5I, T 36 

664,522 

244,368 

68,405 

93-487 
16.732 

gr,o82 

141,653 
180,551 
185,406 
135,062 
213,925 
34,347 
17,720 

183,108 
701.779 
818,904 
501,708 
183.972 


4,091,349 

122,931 

1,485,053 

539,7°° 
161,772 
243,329 
42,335 
195-3'° 
319,146 

4'3-536 
401,570 
276,794 
518,103 
92,53r 
63,592 

392,060 
1,470.495 

i,75i,394 
1,066.300 

398,331 


56.2 
58.4 

55-3 
54-7 
57-7 
61.6 
60.5 
53-4 
55-6 
56.3 
53-8 

5'-2 

58.7 
62.9 

72. 1 

53-3 
52.3 
53-2 
52.9 
53-8 


43 
41 
44 

45 

42 

38 

39 
46 

44 
43 
46 
48 
4' 
37 
27 

46 
47 
46 
47 
46 


8 
6 




7 
3 
3 
4 
5 
6 




Montana 




New Mexico 


Oregon 


4 
7 
2 
8 


South Dakota 

Utah 


Washington 


3 


Wyoming 




9 
7 


Part B 

Indian Territory 

Kansas 


Minnesota 


7 
8 


Nebraska 






2 



ditions in five of this class. The disparity of the sexes is less than 
half as great in these five as in the eleven western states and terri- 
tories excluding Alaska. Inasmuch as Oklahoma is by far the 
most newly settled of all, one would expect to find it approaching 
California; but while it has the greatest inequality of any of the 
five, it is as far from California as from Kansas, the state of the 
second group having the minimum inequality. 

The population in California did not increase as fast as immigra- 
tion might seem to warrant, because of emigration from the State 
to new gold and silver deposits, and because a reaction in mining 
matters set in after about five years of rush and excitement. The 
mania had run its course and was abating. It was influenced 
slightly, too, by a counter attraction in the Appalachian mountains. 






Factor in the Migration of People 109 

There began about this time a general search for gold throughout 
the eastern mountains. Many men engaged in it; and under the 
stimulus of Western excitement, mining, as well as prospecting, re- 
vived in the East, although the output was rather decreased at first 
by the movement westward and did not recover for ten years. An- 
other reason why California's population grew slcfwly after 1853, is 
found in the compulsory exodus of a large number of Mexicans and 
half breeds to Mexico; an expulsion deemed necessary, because the 
lawlessness of the Mexican had been much aggravated by the con- 
ditions in which the mining had placed him ; and made possible, 
because there had responded to the call to come West so many more 
men from the States than from the south. The foreign population 
from the south, however, was only expelled when its character made 
it an undesirable element.* 

Prospectors and Rushes. The development of mining evolved 
the prospectors, whose whole purpose seems to have been to roam 
about and unearth new deposits of treasure. They scattered from 
the camps up the sides of the gulches, across divides laterally and 
down into parallel valleys, or out at the upper ends of valleys and 
down the eastern Sierra slope. Thus other gulches and their con- 
tents became known. Men worked their claims, and told or wrote 
to their friends what they had found, or so described it that similar 
deposits were identified elsewhere. Other men came to visit the 
mines and camps, and after a little examination declared that they 
had the same v kind of stuff at home, and forthwith proceeded to 
prove it. By these exploratory wanderings the extent of the gold 
fields of California became known. 

The prospector wandered out of the State and into others, made 
magnificent finds, or told of finding magnificent things ; and im- 
mediately there were swarms of men, urged by strong desire, who 
were ready to leave sure things for the possibility of something 
richer. By this means there arose many local or even inter-state 
migrations of considerable bodies of men. Whole camps became 
fired with something akin to the feeling in the bosom of the roving 
prospector, but differing in that they knew where they were going, 
while the prospector never knew. Hundreds of rushes of men from 
one gulch to another occurred, thus scattering the miners in all 
directions. Camps often sprung up, mushroom like, in a night, and 
flourished a few months or even a year or two, and then were left 
deserted and abandoned, because the builders had taken a new attack 

* Whitney, J. D. Metallic Wealth of the U. S., p. 137. 



110 Precious -Metals as a Geographic 

of the gold fever. While such frequent moves were usually dis- 
astrous to many of the participants, they were factors of progress ; 
and their final result was an ever widening benefit to the state and 
society, because they increased knowledge both of land and mineral ; 
they mixed men in their period of rapid transformation and pre- 
vented local sectionalism; they diffused knowledge of methods of 
mining and reducing the ores; they acquainted men with several 
conditions under which the ore occurred; and in many ways made 
for the improvement of the industry and the more uniform develop- 
ment of the whole western region. 

Examples of significant or extensive migrations by means of 
rushes are easily found and date from the beginning of the history 
of western gold mining. No sooner had the development of Cali- 
fornia's wealth gotten well under way than such emigration began. 
Sometimes, the particular provocation was a report of a promising 
bonanza, based on some prospector's discovered "traces of gold;" 
sometimes, it was a day's or week's hard luck in the home beds that 
sufficed to send forth the restless miner. In the Fraser River rush of 
1858, 15,000 hardy men left California in four months, and other 
thousands later.* In the following year, thousands went to the 
Cariboo B. C. ; and in 1860-1862, a multitude hastened to Idaho on 
the Clearwater and Salmon rivers. The Washoe rush occurred 
at the same time. During i860- 1862, Nevada sagebrush deserts 
and treeless mountains proved attractive, and California miners be- 
gan to gather treasures from Humboldt, Esmeralda, etc. In 1862, 
a rush to Boise, Idaho, occurred ;f in 1863, to Owyhee; in 1864, to 
Alturas; to Big Bend of the Columbia in 1865, and to White Pine 
in 1866. California lost to these regions in the last three or four 
of these years 30,000 to 40,000 men. Nor did all in each new place 
come from the one State; for the later rushes were made up in part 
of men who had become accustomed to rush, and in part of men 
fresh from the East, as well as of those who were leaving Cali- 
fornia for the first time. Rushing into new territory was not 
confined to the early days but continued down to the present century. 
Nor was it a feature of American mining; for Australia, in the 
fifties, had many wild, exciting rushes and occasional examples all 
along, until the famous West Australia excitements in the nineties, 
of which the Siberia rush was perhaps the most notable. t Klondike 
in the later nineties, and Nome in 1899 and 1900 with Thunder 

♦Bancroft, H. H. Hist, of Calif., Vol. VII, pp. 682-3. 

+ Bancroft, H. H. Hist, of Wash., Idaho and Montana, pp. 4o6f; 418. 

$ Amer. Inst. Min. Eng., 1898, p. 496. 



Factor in the Migration of People 111 

Mountain, Idaho, in 1901-2 bring the rush down nearly to the pres- 
ent. The surficial nature of the gold occurrence in placers seems 
directly responsible for this peculiar character of migrations. Quartz 
deposits do not elicit the phenomenon, because it takes capital and 
machinery to get anything out of them, and the single handed miner 
with rapid development ideas can do nothing. In this shifting 
about, many became discouraged with mining and turned to other 
occupations, as they found suitable localities for grazing or culti- 
vating. Almost all occupations were recruited from among the 
miners, as they had contributed to that class. 

Rushing not only gave an impetus to all the Western States, but 
by this form of migration miners overflowed into British Columbia 
and even into Northern Mexico, teaching the Mexicans better 
methods of working. They affiliated with them, fought Indians for 
them, and prepared the way for closer international relations.* The 
wandering miners even spread into South America, Alaska, Aus- 
tralia, and the Transvaal, from all of which our own Western States 
have now received miners ; and carried with them their laws and 
customs as well as methods of working. Often the transported 
Yankee mining notions were unworkable in the new conditions ; 
but the ingenuity, which responded to the former conditions, was 
again sufficient to devise something that would work, and so the 
diffusion of ideas went on working beneficence all the way as surely 
as did those Crusades of the olden days. 

Reflex Wave of Migration. The fact that the first great dis- 
coveries of gold and silver in the United States were very near the 
western coast, and that subsequent disclosures were made at vary- 
ing distances inland, led to the reflexing of the wave of migration 
and development. All focussed on California for a few years ; then 
other discoveries were made, in Oregon in 1852, Washington in 
1 855,f w i tn Arizona in 1858, Nevada in 1859, and Idaho in i860 or 
1862,1 completing the semi-circle around the first State. Colorado, 
a little out of time, was found to be rich in gold in 1859 by men 
enroute to California ; and there followed a rapid immigration from 
the West as well as from the East. Other valuable deposits were 
revealed in Idaho in 1861 and 1863. Montana started the second 
semi-circle in i860 and 1862, and possibly in 1858, which New 
Mexico in i860, and Utah in 1867 completed. Then came the out- 
posts of South Dakota in 1876 and Alaska in 1880. The dates of 

* Sh'nn, C. H. Mining Camps, pp. 291-2. 

t Bancroft, H. H. Hist, of Wash., Idaho and .Mont., p. 108. 

%Ibid.< p. 406. Eggleston, Edw. United States and Its People, 1888, pp. 75-77. 



112 Precious Metals as a Geographic Factor 

admission to statehood confirm this truth and illustrate still further 
the influence of the mining industry. California, the first western 
State to receive the honor, entered the Union in 1850. Oregon and 
Nevada, two adjoining States, followed in 1859 and 1864, respec- 
tively. Although Utah's population was sufficient before 1870 to 
admit her with her semi-circle, for other reasons she was detained 
until 1896. In 1889 and 1890, the second semi-circle, begun ab- 
normally by Colorado in 1876 (already an important mining State), 
was completed by the admission of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and 
Washington. South Dakota was admitted in 1889, also, but not 
primarily on account of the mining population. Arizona, due in the 
sixties, and New Mexico due with Idaho and Wyoming, did not 
gain statehood until a very recent date. Their interests, although 
mostly mining, were relatively slight; and their populations con- 
sisted, beside the miners, mostly of Mexicans and Indians. As the 
widening waves of discovery spread from California as a center, so 
the wave of migration set in the same direction ; and in the course 
of thirty years, with constant additions from the East, had beaten 
back across all the mountains, setting in motion the machinery of 
development in every State.* 

* Chittenden, H. M. Early Steamboat Navigation on The Missouri River, 1903, Vol. II, pp. 265*". 



Reprinted from The Scottish Geographical Magazine for September 1910. 



THE PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN THE 
SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF TOWNS IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 1 

By George D. Hubbard. 

Classes of Towns and Settlements. — In other papers the relation of the 
discovery and distribution of the precious metals to the movements 
of the people has been discussed, 2 movements both for the purpose of 
exploration, and of engaging in more or less fixed occupations. Here, 
the kinds of v habitations and settlements, and the nature of the com- 
munity groups formed where the influence of gold and silver was strong, 
will be treated. There were in the mining regions of the West 
camps and towns of all degrees of permanence, from the group of 
tents, staked for one or two nights' lodging, to the substantial and well- 
ordered city. There were mining camps, commercial centres, and out- 
fitting stations, and towns and cities primarily for other purposes than to 
minister to the gold and silver mining industry. And not only the 
camps and towns, but the distribution of people and the character of 
rural settlements often show the effects of gold- and silver-mining. 
Probably every hamlet, town, and city in the whole West has been more 
or less modified under the powerful touch of the precious metals. Many 
would never have been at all ; others would not have been so great ; and 
possibly a few would have been of more importance ; but each certainly 

1 This paper was prepared as a part of the requirements for the doctor's degree in 
geography at Cornell University. Thanks are hereby given to Prof. R. S. Tarr, Prof. W. F. 
Willeox, and Prof. H. Ries, whose valuable suggestions aided in giving it any virtue it may 
possess. [It was also submitted to Section E (Geography) at the Winnipeg Meeting of the 
British Association (cf. vol. xxv. p. 579).— Ed. S. G. M.] 

2 Bull. Amer. Geog. Society, vol. xlii. , 1910. 



450 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

bears, in its character and development, marks of the moulding influence 
of this powerful industry. 

A number of causes operated to determine the nature and life-history 
of a miner's settlement. Its purpose probably functioned first. If it 
was to be a camp in a gulch, whither men had been collected hurriedly 
to wash auriferous gravel, the signs of permanence were few or entirely 
wanting ; if it was a centre of extensive or expensive mining of complex 
ores, it had to be more enduring ; if it was to be a provisioning centre 
for a group of diggings, it took on a somewhat fixed character and was 
classed as a town ; if it was to be a commercial centre and the outfitting 
headquarters where new arrivals by land or water were to enter the 
region, its buildings were of a still more substantial kind, and its plan 
better worked out. But the first classification has not always been 
maintained. Founders' plans have often gone far astray, because not in 
harmony with the conditions. 

Conditions and Character of Camps. — Camp conditions have been por- 
trayed by many writers from earliest mining days to the present. 1 In 
some respects the conditions differ widely then and now, owing partly to 
differences in the kind of men who come to the camp ; but in many 
respects there are characteristic resemblances. Placer mining conditions 
will be treated first, hence the following paragraphs are more applicable 
to the earlier mining days. Shelter was nothing more than shelter of 
the simplest kind ; even rude houses in the early days were rarely built ; 
but in recent times adjacent saw-mills make them possible in many 
places. The flimsy board shanty, the tent, stakes with a canvas cover, 
booths of branches, and often simply the thick branches of a standing 
tree, were all the miner took time to construct or appropriate. The 
warm and, for the most part, dry climate of California, where the gold 
first called for dwellers, made it possible to live with almost no shelter in 
summer, while severe winters sometimes drove the miner entirely out of 
the gulch. The shelters stood right in the gulch, or along the bar that 
was to be mined, as near as might be to the work that was to be done ; 
sometimes in the way of future operations, sometimes arranged along a 
single street or path, sometimes irregularly scattered along the side of 
the valley. Planning a camp was usually not thought of. The men 
were too full of the present to plan for the future, and of self to think of 
the convenience of orderly construction. Their equipment consisted of a 
blanket or two apiece for the occupants, a frying-pan and a few other 
culinary or table utensils, a few boxes, bags or bundles of eatables, and, 
after matters were started, an empty box or two. 

The element of camp permanence was at first very small in any 
locality, especially in the early days. This grew out of several condi- 
tions. The first work was usually done on gravels or ledges whose 
output was uncertain, and whose quantity of pay-dirt or ore was never 
known until it was practically exhausted. Men expected to mine what 

1 T. A. Barry and B. A. Patten, San Francisco in the Spring of 1850, 1873. H. H. Ban- 
croft, History of California, 1884. 7 vols. Bret Harte, Many Poems and Stories of 
Western Life. See Works. C. H. Miller (Joachin), Poems, 1882. Bayard Taylor, Eldorado, 
1857. 



PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 451 

was there, and move on. Then the miners were anxious to make the 
most of every moment. The time lost in building a house put one far 
in the rear. A third reason was the excitement induced in most camps 
by the gold. It was not a matter of reason whether to build or to mine. 
Hardly any one who entered a camp could keep from using a pick and 
shovel. The temptation to mine was too strong to be resisted for the 
sake of a little more present comfort. Fourth, the great disparity of the 
sexes, a fact already traceable largely to the geographic conditions under 
which the gold occurred, was in turn a cause of the spirit of unrest and 
the free movement from place to place. If a single man thought he 
could do better elsewhere, he was free to go and try. Again, the 
simple methods of mining, begotten of the conditions of occurrence, 
favoured, for two reasons, the moving about from gulch to gulch. In 
the first place, throughout the California placers the conditions and 
requirements were so similar that no one need stop after moving to 
learn new methods. Secondly, for placer mining one's whole outfit 
could be tied up in a blanket and carried to a new place. This condition 
disappeared when the more complicated processes came into use, but in 
the early history — in the placer stage — permanent settlements were 
almost out of the question. And had there been only placer deposits, 
the boom of any State or region would have been ephemeral. 

There was little division of labour. Nor was there a labouring 
class ; everybody was a proprietor. Because education and experience 
counted for little — so simple was the mining process, and so blind the 
clue to rich pockets — professors of geology, newspaper men, lawyers, 
physicians, sailors, masons, accountants, and farmers, all worked side by 
side. Because of this same simplicity in mining process, and the oppor- 
tunity for any one to " strike it rich," the poor man preferred to work 
independently and run all risks rather than to hire out and thus be sure 
of what the rich man was able to pay. And the rich man was compelled 
to work himself because he could not afford to hire. He could not pay 
what the labourer with his chance for success thought he could make 
alone. All this, with the common risk and speculation and the universal 
gold-begotten excitement, tended to produce the social equality of the 
camp, so marked a feature of the early California days. 

In spite of the social equality, however, some division of labour arose 
early. Those who had an eye to business, and were willing to forego 
the thrill of plucking the yellow rock from the gravels, and at the same 
time to avoid the exposure incident to actual mining, engaged in other 
occupations as essential to the success of the camp as mining, and often 
more certainly lucrative. Some entered the carrying trade. A man and 
a mule sometimes made $3000 in a month. Three Yankees established 
a ferry across the San Joachin river, and took from 8500 to $1000 daily. 
They charged $2 for carrying a man and horse across. 1 It was not 
extortion to charge such prices and reap the reward thereof. The miners 
were making money as rapidly and were perfectly willing to pay. The 
shrewd non-miners simply hit upon an occupation for which the condi- 

1 Bayard Taylor, Eldorado, 1857, pp. 75, 98. 



452 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

tions gave a ready market. Keenness for gold was an element of the 
atmosphere in which society moved. 

Frequently one member of a camp ran a gambling establishment, 
and every town had an abundance and variety of gaming-tables. 
After 1848, robbers, camp-thieves, horse-thieves, and lawless characters 
were to be found, but Shinn 1 says that there was probably less crime 
in California during the first summer than in any summer before or 
since. This fact has been attested by a number of writers, and is 
probably due to several causes. Most of the men were near home, and 
were among friends and neighbours ; the foreign elements had not yet 
arrived, because the influence of the metal had not yet gone far. An 
excitement, a sort of spell, was over the region. The fascination and 
witchery of gold-mining held universal sway. Every one was anxious 
to see what would develop. He preferred to be out knocking about in 
the ravines to find a bigger pile than his neighbour, than to be robbing 
him of his find. Then, too, theft was made a capital offence in many 
districts. It was very easy to take a thousand dollars from the gravel, 
and many times safer than to take it from some miner's tent. Further, 
there was a romance in recovering such valuables from the stream-beds. 
It is no wonder that there was so little theft during these early 
months. 

Owing to the freedom and the independence of endeavour in the 
mining camps, each man's will and power was his law. Disputes and 
quarrels, even duels and murders, occurred in the camps, but were not 
common. As a rule the early camps were much more peaceable than 
would be expected. In recent times lawless tendencies are even less 
violent than in the fifties. Two reasons seem to explain the fact : (a) 
Law and order are not now in the hands of the camp, but are functions 
of the State and local civil organisation, because these institutions have 
had time to develop over most of the West ; (b) Camps as such are 
largely replaced by towns gathered around some huge mining and 
reducing plant, which location gives the place a feeling of permanence 
and security. Of course, many times the rough brute side of human 
nature displays itself vehemently, but respect for law by loyal citizens 
is the rule not the exception. 

The tendency to fast living, a product of extreme optimism and 
unbounded faith in mining, is still found in mining camps and towns ; 
but it is not so strong as in the early days in the newness and wonderful- 
ness of the whole episode. Men made their money easily and rapidly ; 
they were in the exuberance of young manhood. They were away 
from family, and even civil restraint ; they were excited, feverish, often 
delirious with the infatuation for gold, and were not themselves. 
Besides, the tendency to fast living often expressed itself in drunken- 
ness and gambling. 

Special Types of Camps. — Special local conditions gave rise to camps 
of peculiar character. The Southern Appalachian region and places in 
the arid region will illustrate this point. In Georgia and the eastern 

1 C. H. Shinn, Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government, 1885, 
pp. 119, 120. 






PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 453 

States generally, the gold was discovered in well-settled and organised 
regions, and among many other occupations, where, because of the 
scarcity of gold, mining had to remain a minor industry. Hence men 
worked in the mines and gravel deposits between other regular work, 
but did not follow the business all the year round. 1 They could make 
more on their farms in the growing season than from the mines with 
their low grade ores ; and, therefore, the camps were occupied only 
intermittently. At present, however, expensive mining and reduction 
plants which operate all the year round have been introduced at several 
mines. 

Another intermittent type of camp occurs in some places in the arid 
south-west. Gold gravels occur in stream-beds where the flow of water 
is not continuous. A heavy downpour of rain may give the creeks a 
sudden, strong flow, which gradually dwindles to nothing, to be revived 
months later by the next heavy shower. During the dry season the 
men go up the ravines and get a large quantity of gravel out ready to 
sluice when the water comes. Then they return to the valley farms 
or ranches, and work at something else till the approach of rain. On its 
arrival all hands break for the sluices and wash gravel as long as the 
flow of water permits. Occasionally the signs of rain are good, and the 
men hurry to the gravel piles only to find that there is not enough rain 
to reach their diggings ; or the storm comes in the night, and the water, 
having no one to control or use it, sweeps away the accumulations of 
months, and all is lost. Mining is the industry the men are there for, 
but owing to the special climatic and geographic conditions they cannot 
follow it continuously. These peculiar conditions of camp life and work 
are not common enough to effect the total output, but they illustrate 
one phase of geographic influence on the character of the camps. 

Succession of Camp Occupancy. — In the normal order of things in the 
gold-mining States, the prospector has always been the first man on the 
ground. During the early days his voluntary services opened the way 
for the miner and the capitalist. He found and marked the deposit ; 
miners began its development ; capital came and bought as cheaply as 
possible ; but the capitalist himself rarely searched for the deposits. 
In modern times the function of the prospector, with his peculiar 
training and development, is well recognised. Many of the large mining 
companies employ prospectors whose sole business is to scour the hills 
and ravines for more gold, silver, or copper. Of the several types of men 
developed under the special conditions, each finds place in the changing 
economy of gold and silver mining. 2 

Development of Permanent Camps. — In harmony with the permanence 
of form assumed by the industry, the permanence of camps increased. 
While all the work in a region was placer mining, the camp could not 
take on an enduring character ; but, as the processes inevitably changed 
in many localities from the elementary operations of washing gravel to 
the more advanced, complicated, and expensive methods necessarily 



1 J. D. Whitney, Metallic Wealth of the United States, p. 118. 

2 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vii. p. 655. 



454 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

employed in quartz mining, and in the extraction of values from even 
more complex ores of silver, very naturally more fixed camps and 
habitations sprang up around the more stable establishments. In some 
cases vigorous, substantial, well-organised towns have developed from 
these flimsy, temporary beginnings. Butte, Montana, a placer town of 
shabby miners' cabins in 1864, was given a copper smelter in 1866, and 
began its more extensive development in 1875. Five years later it 
had become a substantial town of 5000 people, and its population had 
doubled again by 1885. 1 In 1900 Butte contained over 30,000 people. 
Leadville, Colorado, with its predecessor Oro, furnishes another example. 
This now important mining centre rose in three years from nothing in 
1877, through the placer stage to a town of 15,000 people in 1880, and 
that in a wilderness at an altitude of 10,000 feet. It all came in 
response to the impetus of silver and associated ores. 2 Cripple Creek, 
Colorado, and Deadwood, South Dakota, with a number of smaller purely 
mining towns possessing a permanent character, may be added to the 
list. Potosi, in Bolivia, sprang up from almost nothing, under the 
influence of the exceedingly rich silver mines of the mountain, to a city 
of 160,000 inhabitants, and this at an altitude greater than that of Mt. 
Blanc. The result was marvellous, and would have called forth comment 
even had it occurred under favourable circumstances, but under the 
actual conditions it scarcely seems in the realm of the possible. 3 

Virginia City, located on the Comstock lode, has been in character 
a permanent city from its foundation, because it was built in connection 
with the development of the great silver-gold mine below it. Many of 
the difficulties in the way of the development of the mines restrained 
city building. But a city must be had, because the mining required it. 
The town began very soon after the discovery of the lode in 1858, and, 
under the impetus of the great inrush of miners and others from 
California, grew very rapidly, so that in 1870 and 1880 it had a popula- 
tion of about 10,000. Its supplies had to come by wagon from California ; 
its lumber for buildings over sandy wagon-roads for 20 miles ; its 
water-supply was at first brought 12 to 15 miles in wagons, and later, 
at an enormous expense, from lakes in the mountains 20 miles away. 
No agricultural land near by contributed food, for all around was 
barren, parched, deserted wilderness. And yet the city rose in ten 
years to 10,000 people. 

But when the mine ceased to produce, because the great obstacles en- 
countered were then unconquerable, the city declined, and it is now but 
a shadow of its former short-lived greatness. The region, although once 
considerably improved, has reverted to wilderness. The close relation 
between the mining industry on the Comstock lode and the growth and 
decline of Virginia City and its associates, cannot be more clearly seen 
than in the accompanying Table. 



1 H. H. Bancroft, History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1890, pp. 740, 752, 764. 

2 R. P. Porter, The West from the Census of 1880, 1882, p. 373. United States Geological 
Survey, Monograph xn. , pp. 14 et seq. 

3 J. D. Whitney, Auriferous Gravels, 1854, p. 171. 



precious metals as a geographic factor in united states. 455 

Production of Comstock Lode and Population of the three Towns 
in the Vicinity — Virginia, Gold Hill, and Silver City. 



Date. 


Population 
(approximate).! 


Production in oz. 2 


1859 
1860 
1870 
1877 
1880 
1881 
1890 
1900 


a few 

4,000 
13,000 
21,000 
15,500 

9,000 3 
3,000 3 


30,000 
1,000,000 
3,000,000 
36,000,000 
5,000,000 
1,000,000 
5,000,000 
1,000,000 



This city is only a giant of a common type. Towns were built 
hurriedly, badly, and extravagantly, as the mining industry grew, because 
everybody had full faith in the prosperity of the mine. After a more or 
less successful and extended boom, the mine in many cases began to 
decline, and with it the town. Abandoned claims, camps, and towns are 
to be found all through the Western mountains, and every year adds 
to the list. 

Commercial and Outfitting Centres. — A class of places in very close 
contact with purely mining camps and towns contains a long list of 
distributing and outfitting towns all over the West, from Denver to the 
Pacific. Stockton on the San Joachin, and Sacramento on the Sacra- 
mento, both at the foot of the slopes leading eastward up to the mouths 
of the Sierra gulches and valleys, were two of the earliest of the class, 
and will serve to illustrate their characteristics. Each was within fairly 
easy reach of a number of mining camps, whose wants they supplied. 
Each had water communication with the sea and with that greater 
emporium, San Francisco. Each sprang up at a point where goods and 
people could no longer go in large masses, but must scatter to the 
individual camps. Merchandise and miners, transferred to river steam- 
boats at San Francisco, were carried up the rivers to either of these 
places, and again transferred to heavy wagons or pack-animals, and then 
laboriously hauled out to the various camps. 

Stockton was a canvas town in 1849, but also a commercial centre 
making very perceptible growth in the course of a week. Taylor 4 pre- 
dicted its success as a distributing point, because of its central position 
and means of transport. The mining camps demanded a centre some- 
where in the vicinity, and this point had the requisite position. The 
enormously rapid increase in population and output of the tributary 
mines was closely followed by the expansion of the town. Shinn 5 says 
it increased from a single ranch house to a canvas city of a thousand 
people in three months. For several years it was flooded with transients 
and with merchandise, because of its relation to the camps. People and 



1 Becker, Monog. in., U.S.G.S., p. 4. 

3 Eleventh Census. 

5 C. H. Shinn, Mining Camps, 1885, p. 137. 



2 Lord, Monog. IV., U.S.G.S., p. 416. 
4 B. Taylor, Eldorado, 1857, pp. 98, 99. 



456 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

goods destined for camps came here by boat faster than they could 
be despatched to the gulches. It never collapsed so completely as did 
others when the mining in its tributary gulches declined, because of its 
early-developed agricultural interests. 

Sacramento also experienced a phenomenal evolution. In April 1849 
there were four houses on the site ; in November there were hundreds of 
tents, shanties, and respectable houses sheltering ten thousand people, 
most of whom were transients, some just arriving in California, others 
returning for the winter from their summer's digging. The town, apart 
from these diverse residences, consisted of a few stores and large platforms 
for handling freight, which were clustered along the river, while the 
unsightly collection of abodes was scattered along the flood plain 
for a mile. 

Like Stockton, its business demanded that it should be close to the 
stream, and therefore, like its twin, Sacramento was frequently flooded 
by the sudden rise of the torrent-fed river. Its hasty construction, due 
to enormous and imperative demands for greater commercial and hostelry 
accommodation, and to the feverish excitement of its business men, 
resulted in many carelessly built, inflammable structures. Hence fierce 
and destructive fires ravaged the city. Fabulous prices prevailed. 
Carpenters struck because they were getting only $12 a day. This 
price for labour, low compared with that in San Francisco, was due 
to the return of many disappointed miners who temporarily overstocked 
the market. 1 Single town lots were held at from one to three thousand 
dollars, when scarcely a house in town was actually worth that amount. 
As the time passed, buildings, expensive because of the great demand, 
the cost of labour, and the scarcity and expense of building materials, 
quickly replaced the tents and shanties. Prices were pushed too high, 
business became unsteady; the town surged with speculation, and became 
uproarious with traffic ; profits reached 100 per cent, above rates accepted 
in San Francisco, and rents ruled as high as $5000 dollars a month 
for moderate buildings, while lots crept to $30,000 in the summer of 
1850. In September 1850 this enormous inflation of values was followed 
by a terrific collapse. Similar crises, though less tense, arose again 
in this city and in other commercial centres. Floods, fires, and failures 
were the common city disasters. Sacramento, in a large fertile valley, 
did not experience the customary collapse on the waning of placer mining, 
because of the early utilisation of the agricultural possibilities, and 
because of its position as the State capital. It is to-day the capital, and 
a centre of considerable trade in agricultural supplies and products, which 
far outweighs its purely mining interests. 

Other commercial centres of this class are Denver, Walla Walla, 
Lewiston, Fort Benton, El Paso, and even Salt Lake City. Denver 
is said to have sprung from a stage station to a city almost in a night, 
while a long line of mining towns rose along the eastern base of the 
Rockies. 2 Walla Walla was the outfitting station for the camps in the 



1 B. Taylor, Eldorado, 1857, pp. 220, 221. 

2 R. P. Porter, The West from the Census 0/I88O, 1882, p. 373. 



PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 457 

rich Boise basin and Owyhee valley, and Lewiston supplied the Salmon 
and Clearwater valleys. 1 Fort Benton, at the head of navigation on the 
upper Missouri river, was destined to be a commercial centre as long as 
river traffic continued ; but its character as an outfitting and provisioning 
centre was determined by the discovery of gold in Fergus county, and 
especially in the mountains west of the fort. The place was but a fort 
and fur-trading station prior to the outbreak of Montana's gold fever, but 
by leaps and bounds it rose to the rank of a town, and even bade fair to 
be a city of note within a few years. The impetus of the mining industry 
was too great for the good of the growing town, for the arrival of the 
Northern Pacific railroad, required just at this time and place by the new 
industry, robbed the river of its traffic, and at the same stroke removed 
Fort Benton's excuse for existence. Hence it has declined, and Great 
Falls has risen as a manufacturing and smelting centre. 2 Seattle, in 
"Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, bear the same relations 
to the Alaskan camps that the above towns bore to their respective 
regions. 

San Francisco and the Influence of Gold. — San Francisco, one of the 
largest cities on the Pacific coast, is in its entirety a response to the 
influence of several classes of environmental elements. Founded in 1835 
by an Englishman who built his own little group of houses, and augmented 
in the following year by the single structure of an American, the great 
commercial emporium began its existence. The Hudson Bay Company 
took advantage, in 1841, of its position, and established a branch house. 
Its growth up to January 1848, the date of Sutter's discoveries, amounted 
to about two hundred houses set along well laid out streets and squares, 
with a population of less than a thousand ; but in many respects it 
was one of the most thriving towns in California. Its people, chiefly 
Americans, were hardy, determined pioneers — backwoodsmen, artisans, 
seafarers, traders, and a few professional men. The town never was 
Mexican although under Mexican colours at the start, but there, were a 
few scattered Spanish-Mexican mission settlements near. 3 

The locality was marked by Nature for a commercial centre, and, with 
the elements of commerce provided, promised to be a metropolis. It lay 
on the only natural harbour between San Diego and the mouth of the 
Columbia, and almost midway between them. It was in the gateway to 
a rich, fertile valley of enormous dimensions, bathed in salubrious air, 
a valley nearly closed to the east by mountain and desert barriers, and 
walled in on all sides by almost continuous ranges. Other harbours south 
of the Columbia had less of value in their hinterland. It of necessity 
had a monopoly of the trade of the State of California. Then its western 
outlook was toward the millions of the Orient just on the verge of their 
awakening. Naturally, a city would some day arise on this bay. Where 
would it be 1 The farther or inland side was too shallow for sea-going 
vessels, as were also the mouths of the rivers. The north side of the gate- 

1 H. H. Bancroft, History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1890, pp. 406 et seq. 

2 H. M. Chittenden, Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, 1903, vol. i. 
p. 237. 

3 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vi. pp. 6, 7. 






458 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

way was steep and rocky ; the south was gently rising, and on the eastern 
side of the ridge, between the bay and the sea, there was a broad, low 
area stretching along the coast for some miles with depth of water before 
it sufficient for the merchant marine of those days. All this aided in 
determining the spot. Now, in 1848, all was like a great machine in 
place in the mill, but with no grist and no power. California's total 
American white population was about two thousand. No resources 
except furs, lumbering, and a very little agriculture were known, and 
these were undeveloped. The land was sparsely settled, unknown, and 
insufficiently watered for agriculture. Moreover, if development had 
depended upon the normal processes of migration and frontier evolution, 
against such heavy odds, it is hardly likely that fifty years would have 
accomplished what was done in five or six. 1 

Suddenly and vehemently came the impulse which created excitement 
and chaos not only in the city but throughout the entire State and even 
thousands of miles beyond her undefined boundaries. G-old was found 
in gravels so marvellously productive and so easily worked, that anybody 
with a pick, shovel, and pan could gather from ten to a hundred dollars 
worth a day, and ran the chances of finding ten times as much in one 
hour. And San Francisco had a corner on all trade, passenger as well as 
freight, for all the developing industry of valley and mountain-side save 
that which crawled slowly across country in wagons. 

Her first response was a rush of almost her entire population to the 
diggings across the valley, but in a very short time an incoming rush of 
immigrants replaced the loss. From less than 1000 in the spring of 
1848, she grew to 15,000 in the early fall of 1849 ; 2 from a group 
of dwellings, stores, and little warehouses she became a great commercial 
city ; from a quiet fur-trading station to a centre of international trade 
and cosmopolitan enterprise and life. Every vessel in 1849 brought 
passengers, and the harbour was crowded with the shipping of almost 
every nationality. Goods and provisions were hurried to her wharves 
and into the streets. There were not half buildings enough to house the 
supply. Tents, and canvas or rubber-covered frames, piles of empty 
boxes, sheds, houses enclosed on three sides, and buildings in every stage 
of construction, and of every conceivable cheap pattern, might be found. 
From fifteen to thirty houses were built in a day. At least seventy-five 
were imported from Canton and were erected by Chinese labour. Streets 
stretched out up the hill to-day ; and to-morrow their flanks were cleared 
of chapparal, hemmed in by a double row of houses, and thronged with 
people and goods. New warehouses sprang up, and new piers were 
reaching farther and farther out into the thickening and enlarging forest 
of masts ; and the noise, motion, and bustle of business and labour were 
incessant. 3 And all this in a place where lumber and even houses were 
imported ; where a year before there was not even a saw-mill ; where 
agriculture had no footing, and civil organisation scarcely existed ; where 



1 J. S. Nicholson, Effects of Great Discoveries of the Precious Metals, 1887, pp. 38, 39. 

2 B. Taylor, Eldorado, 1857, pp. 203-5. 

3 Ibid., pp. 109, 110. 



PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 459 

both labour and materials were exorbitantly high ; in fact, where almost 
everything but enterprise and gold-dust were lacking. All else was 
hurrying thitherward on the demand of these. Taylor estimates that 
the values expended for materials, labour, and lands would have built 
on the Atlantic coast a well-established and organised city of 100,000 
people. 1 

The constant stream of immigration brought every class from every 
land until one could see in the streets a throng as " diverse and bizarre 
as the houses" beside them — Yankees of every possible variety, and 
frontiersmen from all over the middle West, native Californians, Chilians, 
Sonorans, Kanakas, Chinese, Malays, and scores of others so browned 
and grizzled that their nationality was unrecognisable. Such a cosmopoli- 
tan population gathers in a commercial centre ; but it was found here 
before the city became a commercial centre, and hence it must be ascribed 
to some other cause. Commerce came later when the market was ready. 
If the people themselves be consulted, they will answer that they were 
attracted by the stories of the gold discoveries. 

Then the spirit or humour of the people was characteristic. The 
general excitement, good nature, and buoyancy have been remarked by 
all writers. There was a restless spirit, too, in those men, a bustling, 
energetic manner ; energy to spare, a genius and an adaptability, rarely 
met with elsewhere. Men with little material to do with did what they 
could. Their buildings were a testimony to the use of makeshifts. Men 
were willing to put up with any convenience or inconvenience, for the 
sake of being there. 

Prices and rents soared to fabulous heights. Taylor 2 tells of his 
garret-room beneath rafters, with home-made chairs and bed frame, which 
he shared with another man, and for which they paid $25 each a week. 
They paid $20 a week for board. A hotel — board structure, two or three 
stories high, and no conveniences — let for an aggregate of $110,000 per 
annum. A canvas tent, 15 by 25 feet, used by gamblers, let for $48,000 
per annum. Shinn 3 says the Parker House in San Francisco cost $30,000 
to construct, and let for $15,000 a month. Labour cost $10 to $15 per 
diem, and some kinds even more. Trade in that evolving city was 
spasmodic. Merchandise, becoming scarce in the abnormally stimulated 
market, could command fancy prices ; then the arriving of new stock 
would often over-reach the demand, and prices might decline far below 
cost. Of course, much of this irregularity in the supply and demand 
was due to the isolation of the place ; for gold-mining was calling into 
being a city remote from all else, but near the miners. Telegraph, cables, 
and telephones did not connect the city with eastern markets, nor did 
rapid transportation bring new stock to a depleted market. A stock of 
merchandise exhausted in any line remained so, barring any chance arrival 
of the article wanted, until word could be carried to market and the goods 
returned — three months at a minimum. 



1 B. Taylor, Eldorado, pp. 203-5. 

2 Ibid., 1857, pp. 54 et seq. 

3 C. H. Shinn, Mining Camps, 1885, p. 138. 



460 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

While San Francisco was so shut off from the outside world, she 
kept in close touch with her subordinates. With those sub-centres of 
commerce, supplied through the seaport, she was in frequent communi- 
cation by wagon and pack-animal. Like other towns of the mining 
region, San Francisco's life and spirit pulsated with the life about her ; 
and, while she may have more than kept pace with the country in 
material progress, she felt particularly the changes in trade currents as 
mining interest rose and fell in tributary districts. 1 

And so the city grew. Her hasty and flimsy, but extravagant con- 
struction incorporated much bad planning, from which she suffered 
many things later. Severe conflagrations were so common that the 
sixth had occurred before the end of June 1851. Each time she built 
better and endeavoured to protect herself more adequately. Municipal 
affairs could not be organised fast enough to keep pace with the needs 
of the city ; hence the chaotic and corrupt condition of administration 
and control may be ascribed to the influence of gold within her environ- 
ment. The wave of flush times formed an incentive to disorders due to 
the incoming of idle workmen, and this in turn called for vigilance 
committees. Change was the order, both of officials and of form of 
organisation. Eivalry and abuse, supported by strategy, intrigue, and 
greed, succeeded in rolling up a city debt of over a million within the 
year ending February 185 1. 2 

The first six years were a period of herculean achievement — hills 
were levelled, marshes filled, streets paved, the sites of smouldering 
ruins were covered with more substantial buildings, and order and 
system were gradually evolved from the most heterogeneous mixture of 
humanity and organisation ever collected in so few years. A commercial 
metropolis was formed, ranking well with the world's master commercial 
centres. And all was brought about against heavy odds. Unscrupulous 
officials, fires, lawless ruffians and vigilantes, debt, bad land titles, inflated 
land values, and emigration of thousands of men to more lucrative fields 
— these were her opponents, but she mastered them. 

A crash in 1853, on the summit of the enormous inflations associated 
with the maximum gold production, shook the civil and social fabric as 
well as the financial structure, but only shook it together the better. It 
initiated many industries ; miners entered farming of various kinds and 
helped to supply the city's needs. Manufacturing of candles and furni- 
ture, sugar refining and whisky distillation, founding and machine 
making, became notable industries in the city. She has grown and 
incorporated until a few years ago her population was over 350,000, and 
her rank was easily the first on this side of the Pacific. And had it not 
been for her location along a line of earth-crustal movement, no doubt 
she would have maintained her leadership. Her business, especially 
commercial and manufactural, is dependent to a considerable degree 
upon the mining industry even at present. Her commerce, in part, 
concerns itself with the handling of imported mining supplies, and her 

1 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vii. p. 682. 

2 Ibid., vol. vi. pp. 164-220. 



i 



PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 4:61 

manufacturing with the making of many machines, materials, foods, and 
equipment for the mining industry. 

While her present prosperity and national as well as international 
relations are due to her position and the products of the industries 
around her, it must be admitted that the development of these industries 
and the presence of the city in this generation are largely due to the 
stimulation of the gold-mining industry. Had no gold been found in 
the vicinity, there would have been little need as yet for such a mart. 

Settlements and Toivns remotely related. — Not all camps or settlements 
whose beginnings may be credited to the influence of gold and silver, were 
placed in the metal-producing localities ; but, just as in other great 
migrations a few travellers turn aside from the trail to make permanent 
settlements, so here occasionally fertile mountain valleys and beautiful 
parks were settled long before the United States frontier in its normal 
agricultural development could have reached the position. 1 Some of 
these were occupied by families, en route for California, who became 
stranded, others by families whose enthusiasm had brought them thus 
far, but, becoming exhausted, permitted them to make permanent settle- 
ments and to begin farming, grazing, or lumbering, or all three, out in 
some charming but isolated locality. This halting sometimes led also to 
the discovery of new sources of wealth, minerals of various sorts, or inter- 
esting crop possibilities ; but this always took place in advance of the 
general onward march of the agricultural frontier of the West. 

So far as their relation to the precious metals is concerned, all other 
towns belong to one of two types. The first is that of Anaconda, Pueblo, 
and Tucson, with no mining at all. These towns were founded primarily 
for refining the ore, and many of their people work in great ore-smelters. 
Such towns are absolutely necessary to the progress of the mining busi- 
ness, because without places near the mines where the ore can be reduced, 
the industry cannot be carried on. These towns owe most of their 
development and present business to their relation to mining. 

The other class consists of places, often founded before the discoveries 
of gold, whose business has come to be in some way tributary to mining, 
and hence stimulated by it. Such places are Astoria, Tacoma, Oakland, 
San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, and many others. 
It may be said that probably no city or town west of the 105th meridian 
is what it would have been without any gold or silver in the West. 
Most of them would as yet have had but little reason for being. Many 
of them were enormously stimulated indirectly by the immigration, 
commerce, agriculture, manufactures, and railroad development, them- 
selves quickened by the presence and exploitation of gold and silver. 

Metamorphosis of Toivns. — An interesting change of character has taken 
place in the case of several of these mining camps and local commercial 
centres because of the influence of gold and silver. Benicia, at the 
mouth of the inner bay into which the Sacramento and San Joachin 
rivers flow, promised to be the commercial centre of that region ; but in 
spite of her many advantages of position, San Francisco received the 



1 C. H. Shinn, Mining Camps, p. 134. 



462 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

passenger traffic when the ships came in 1849-50, because the latter wa 
nearer the sea and most of the vessels could not reach Benicia. San 
Francisco very soon outstripped her ambitious rival, who humbly retired 
to the rank of a quiet county seat. The gold excitement overruled 
Benicia's plans, made so quietly and securely. San Francisco, a child of 
circumstances, took the palm from the city of plan and design. 

Placerville and Eldorado were purely mining towns. The former 
was famous under the name of " Hangtown," and sustained the first mob 
tribunal in 1849. It was very rich in 1848, and increased in 1849, but 
soon after began to sink because of the failure of the placers, and in 1856 
it had passed from a rich nourishing town of brilliant promise, through 
abandonment, fire, and flood, to rise again more substantially built, and 
to grow gradually into a staid agricultural community and a dignified 
county seat. Eldorado passed through a similar history for the same 
reasons. The mining canals of both became irrigation ditches, and their 
wasted slopes were given over to viticulture, while the neighbouring 
fields passed under adequate tillage. 

Many towns rose quickly from camp to trade centre under changing 
conditions, and as quickly melted to a rubbish-heap when the miners of 
the locality heard of richer finds elsewhere. Everything in the con- 
struction of towns partook of the precarious and unstable. A thousand 
incalculable incidents, usually styled luck, but growing out of the 
distribution of the precious metals, were constantly lifting up one town 
and pulling down another, inflating this district and impoverishing that. 
As the mining industry continues to increase, wood structures replace 
the tents, brick or better wood replaces the first wood, and the new-born 
city thrives ; then the gold fails, and in a week the town of a thousand 
people is deserted, perhaps never to be again rehabilitated with activity, 
perhaps to lie dormant a season, and then, because new deposits are 
found, come forth as some other style of mining centre, or, because 
irrigation possibilities and soil resources have been recognised, as an 
agricultural settlement. Hence it is that wrecked towns as well as 
camps are exceedingly common in most of the leading mining States ; 
and, further, it is true that similar conditions are producing similar 
results to-day. Millions invested in towns, ditches, and appliances, now 
in ruins, have been wasted because the actual distribution of the ore was 
not known, or because the proper processes for its extraction had not 
been found. No accurate estimate of this loss can be made. 

Monterey, California, founded in the year 1770 as a Spanish mission 
and garrison, was the Spanish capital of the territory until 1847, and 
the American capital from then until after the constitutional convention 
of 1849. It was deserted for the mines in 1848, in spite of the dignity 
recently acquired, even as was San Francisco, and both commercial San 
Francisco and governmental Monterey were temporarily eclipsed. 1 
Taylor 2 predicted a great future for the town, even though its govern- 
mental supremacy vanished with the removal of the capital to San Jose. 



1 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vi. pp. 63, 64. 

2 B. Taylor, Eldorado, 1857, pp. 140, 141. 



PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 463 

But its early start availed nothing ; for it was effectively cut off form 
the influence of gold and silver by the Coast range, and no railroad has 
yet reached it through the mountains, although it has railroad connec- 
tions and outlet both north and south between mountains and coast. In 
1883 it had fourteen hundred people and in 1890 sixteen hundred. It 
is now no more than a little quiet residence town for a few retired men. 
Influence on Place-names. — Names of towns all through the mining 
States bear the marks of their origin as mining camps. Instead of ville, 
city, burg, or ton, the affixes are camp, flat, bar, beach, bank, gulch, etc. 
Sometimes the name has the ordinary affix and a radical gold-determined, 
or it contains some term for gold or silver, or consists of something 
strongly smacking of camp-life. The following illustrations were selected 
from small-scale maps in a school atlas and in Britannica. It may be 
that one or two of these names were given for other reasons than the 
influence of the precious metals, but most of them are certainly gold- 
derived. 



Angel's Camp 


Goldburg 


Silverton 


Happy Camp 


Gold Hill 


Silver City 


Camp Grant 


Golden 


Silver King 


Chinese Camp 


Gold Creek 


Silver Bow 


Moor's Flat 


Richfield 


Silver Plume 


Dutch Flat 


Ophir 


Argenta 


Fresno Flat 


Eldorado 


Chloride 


Oak Bar 


Oro Fino 


Telluride 


Rocky Bar 


Oro Blanco 


Eureka 


"Washington Gulch 


Oroville 


Powderville 


Brown's Canyon 


Placerville 


Troublesome 


Cut Bank 


Quartz 


Bonanza 


Gold Beach 


Enterprise 


Presto 


Goldendale 


Silver 


Fairplay 



Scores of stations, cross-roads, and other minor places proclaim their 
ancestry in their patronymics. Not only do towns bear the royal 
colouring, but many words in our language have been coined for special 
mining terms, or incorporated into the language from some other tongue, 
or given special technical meanings, as results of the gold- and silver- 
mining industry. Pay-dirt, prospecting, hydraulicking, and pay-gravel 
illustrate the first type ; placer, bonanza, tye, and buddle the second ; 
and torn, ledge, show, colour, etc., the third. 

Paper Towns. — City -building and town-booming by oily-tongued 
agents early became a business, and in the speculative atmosphere of 
the West the business grew. California suffered most in the earlier 
days because she was the pioneer as well as the greatest gold producer. 
Bancroft says this State had probably more paper towns than any equal 
area in the West. 1 The city-building craze possessed men most strongly 
in 1849 and 1850, after which the symptoms abated to sporadic cases 
with occasional epidemics, as in 1863. "Corner lot" speculations were 



1 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vi. p. 443. 



464 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 

common. Cross-roads, ferries, and even river-landings had their pro- 
moters who predicted their future greatness. Examples may be found 
in such paper fabrics as Linda, Kearney, Eliza, Featherton, and others 
from California's roll. Idaho has suffered much in recent years from 
town-lot agents, as well as from spurious mining companies and un- 
scrupulous stockbrokers. 

Influence on Settlement in General. — The discussion of towns and cities 
must not claim all our attention in the consideration of the settlement 
of the West, as influenced by the precious metals. The chief business 
prior to 1849 all through these Western States was trapping and fur- 
trading, a business whose success and permanence depended on the 
suppression of any tendency toward fixed settlements for the develop- 
ment of agriculture and grazing. Hence, the occupation of these States 
cannot be attributed to the influence of that industry. Following it, 
and discouraging it to a considerable extent, the mining industry spread 
over the whole western section, more actively and more permanently in 
some places than in others. Thus, mining the precious metals became 
the pioneer industry throughout much of the West. Because its ten- 
dency was to call into being, as associates and feeders, agriculture, 
grazing, lumbering, manufacturing, commerce, and government, this 
development of mining resulted in settlement for other subsequent 
industries. The history of settlement and the development of industries 
in most of the Western States is largely a history of their mining 
industry. 1 

Colorado and California have had the most rapid development, and 
have been in the aggregate the heaviest producers. Nevada is the third 
in total output, but her backward condition is due to her lack of other 
possible resources. It is a marvel that even her mining industry has 
been able to reach such dimensions against such odds. What would 
her development have been had there been no gold- and silver-mining to 
nurse and coerce other industries 1 And of the other States, so far as 
settlement is concerned, probably Washington, Oregon, and Utah have 
been least affected ; the two former, because of moderate values and 
limited development of the ores, while settlement for other industries 
has responded to the general call of progress and been stimulated by the 
influence of mining in neighbouring States ; the latter, because religious 
beliefs suppressed mining for a long time but encouraged settlement 
for other occupations, and these were greatly aided by mining in other 
States. 

In two ways the influence on settlement is evident. Tens of 
thousands of men went West to mine the precious metals, but many of 
them soon decided to withdraw, or were forced by hard luck, lack 
of capital, or ill-health, into other occupations. While a large number 
returned to the East, thousands remained on the agricultural or grazing 
lands or entered the forest as lumbermen, while still others entered 
shops, warehouses, stores, offices, etc., aiding the general settlement and 
development of the country by their presence and work. Further, the 

. 1R.P. Porter, The West from the Census of 1880, 1882, p. 372. 






PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN UNITED STATES. 465 

great output of gold advertised the West both in the East and abroad. 
In connection with gold stories went its news of soils, crops, forest, and 
climate ; and bond fide settlers, who never intended to mine at all, have 
gone into all parts of the West. Not only has gold- and silver-mining 
been a pioneer industry throughout the Western mountain States, but it 
has been a fundamental force in opening up to settlement as much of the 
vast area as it is desirable to settle. 

Effects on the Foreign Population. — Little need be said of the special 
influence on the foreign population of the West. According to the 
Twelfth Census, foreigners are congested about Butte, Montana, in 
several places in California, both in the valley and on the mountain 
slopes, and in scattered patches over both agricultural and mining lands. 
It seems that with the Americans came also others in response to the 
drawing power of gold ; but probably in no greater proportion than they 
came to engage in other occupations open in a new country. Certainly 
gold- and silver-mines have been no more effective in settling foreigners 
in their vicinity than have coal-mines, iron and cotton factories. 
Certain local phases and one general result of foreign settlement in the 
West must be noted. A large influx of Spanish-Mexicans occurred in 
the early California days, but it was always second to the pure American 
immigration even then. The Sonorans scattered all along the Sierra 
valleys, but were not allowed to remain because of their general in- 
dolent, unruly character, and their special tendency to thievishness. 
Their expulsion began well north, and they settled again farther south ; 
then, again becoming a nuisance, they were sent home in great numbers. 
Mexicans certainly would have been more permanent settlers in Cali- 
fornia if the treasure had never been found, and no Americans brought 
thither to oppose them. A second local effect of the influence of gold 
on foreigners is the gift to the Pacific States, and notably to California, 
of thousands of Chinese. Many of these cheap labourers came exclusively 
to dig gold. Others came to engage in some of the lucrative subsidiary 
occupations, such as cooking, laundry work, and farming. Thousands are 
engaged in agriculture, horticulture, fishing, etc. They were not usually 
allowed in the mines or gravels with the Americans, so they took up 
abandoned claims, and even to the present thousands of Chinese are 
laying up money on the "worn-out" claims. 1 An attempt has been 
made to find out if there were any notable responses to California's call 
from gold- and silver-mining regions in other parts of the world, but 
without any result. Not one, but all occupations sent settlers to the 
mining regions. 

The general effects over the entire area of the mining States, of their 
occupation upon an exceedingly mixed and varied population, drawn 
from all classes, creeds, and nationalities, are apparent. What Jordan 2 
said of California as a consequence of this cosmopolitan character applies, 
though often with less force, to most of the mountain States. " It is 
the most cosmopolitan of all the States of the Union, and such it will 



1 H. H. Bancroft, History of California, 1884, vol. vii. p. 649. 

2 Atlantic Monthly, 1898. 



466 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. 






remain. Whatever the fates may bring, the people will be tolerant, 
hopeful, and adequate, sure of themselves, masters of the present, fear- 
less of the future." The percentage of the foreign element is no higher 
than in other portions of the United States, or in other industries, but 
the variety in any locality is greater, and no one element predominates. 






(Reprinted from The Bulletin of The Geographical Society of Philadelphia, 

Vol. X, No. i, January, 1912.] 



THE INFLUENCE OF GOLD AND SILVER MINING UPON 
THE CHARACTERS OF MEN. 

George D. Hubbard, Ph.D. 1 
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. 

The results of the influence of the precious metals upon the 
character of men are intangible, immaterial, and evasive. Many 
factors have entered into the character of our Western men and 
Western society beside the influence of gold and silver mining; and 
other factors than gold are able to produce some of the results which 
come in response to its influence. The oil craze is similar to the 
gold fever. Other kinds of mining than gold produce some of the 
same effects, and any frontier life develops some of the character- 
istics found in gold and silver miners. Hence, it has been extremely 
difficult and sometimes impossible to arrive at conclusions that are 
at all trustworthy. For these reasons, it will not be surprising if, 
on some points, the author and reader part company. 

The Gold Fever. — The " rush " has been described as a con- 
sequence of an excitement popularly called the " gold fever." This 
mania captured all classes of people, often making them oblivious of 
duty, forgetful of friends, and even of self and bodily comforts. 
The excitement in Georgia in 1 829-1 830 did not last long but was 
extraordinary. Professor Silliman 2 speaks of the excited state of 
men's minds and of the speculative spirit existing: and adds that 
facts were rarely reported correctly ; and the public mind, being 
morbidly excited, was blinded. 

In California, the stories of gold did not seem to enthuse the 
people; but, when in April the dazzling yellow metal itself was 

1 This paper is a portion of a thesis presented as a part of the require- 
ment for the Ph.D. degree in geography at Cornell. For other parts see 
Bull. Am. Geog. Soc, Vol. XLII (1910), pp. 592-602; also Vol. XLIV, 
Feb., 1912; Scottish Geog. Mag., 1910, pp. 449-466, and 191 1, pp. 417 and 
470; Bull. Phil. Geog. Society, Vol. IX (191 1), pp. 1-22. Special thanks 
«re due Professors R. S. Tarr, W. F. Willcox and H. Ries, of Cornell 
University, for criticism and suggestion throughout the whole work. 

2 Am. Jour. Sci., XXXII (1836), p. 98. 

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37 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

brought into the streets of San Francisco, the fever spread, and the 
contagion swept through the State. 3 Merchants and their clerks 
alike left the offices; lawyers, doctors, and even State officials went; 
soldiers and policemen deserted; whole ships' crews and officers 
abandoned their vessels when once within the harbor; farmers, 
ministers, laborers, and gamblers responded. The epidemic knew no 
social or class lines. During the first years, a kind of frenzy would 
seize a community ; and thousands would rush away to some new 
and perhaps distant locality, where many would perish with disease 
or hunger, while the remainder returned in poverty and rags. They 
would leave localities of known value to search out a new one with 
no more provocation than a newspaper note. 4 

Gold was discovered in Coeur d'Alene placers of Northern Idaho 
in 1883 and produced the same enthusiasm; men surged in from 
New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California; from Minnesota, 
Puget Sound, Winnipeg, Assiniboine, British Columbia, and 
Dakota. 5 When masses of gold aggregating 106 pounds were found 
near Bathurst, Australia, in 1851, and the news became public 
property, the greatest excitement prevailed. The Sydney Morning 
Herald of July 18, said " Bathurst is mad again. Men meet 
together, stare stupidly at each other and talk incoherent nonsense. 
The nerves of the community at large have received a severe shock." 
It has been the same in Alaska, Klondyke, Transvaal and West 
Australia, and from the beginning of gold mining down to the 
present. Gold in veins is much less effective than in gravel. Today, 
cooperation and the reduction of mining for the precious metals to 
an organized and capitalized business, remove the romance of gold 
mining, and of course cut off the excitement among the miners. 6 

It would be quite unfair to turn from the subject of gold fevers 
without mention of the effects on those left at home. The enormous 
migrations of 1849 an d subsequent years tore many families asunder, 
leaving sad mothers, sorrowing wives, and neglected children witn 
poverty and disappointment to combat; while he who had gone forth 

'Bancroft, H. H., "History of California" (1884), Vol. VI, p. 58. 

4 Bancroft, H. H., " Hist, of Mexico," Vol. IV, p. 702. 

5 Shinn, C. H., " Mining Camps ; a Study in American Frontier Govern- 
ment " (1885), p. 255. 

6 World Today, Vol. VIII (1905), pp. 178-185. 

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George D. Hubbard. 38 

sometimes struggled with fortune successfully, but frequently sunk 
discouraged and diseased into an unmarked grave. 7 

Effects on Health. — While many left at home suffered from 
privation, the miner in the field and camp, contended with disease 
and very often gave up health, or even life itself, in his eager search. 
Literally thousands were stricken down while en route in the desert 
and mountain wastes, thus depriving families of their support and 
society of some of its strength. This was because of the distant 
occurrence of the gold and lack of proper food, water or shelter. 
The exposure to weather and to cold and ague by standing in cold 
water at work ; the privations due to lack of food and shelter, and 
the irregularities induced by improper food, begot a whole crop of 
maladies, ague and chills, fever, dysentery, scurvy, pneumonia, 
malaria. Most of these are common in new countries, but exposure 
and vicious mining methods so weakened constitutions that these 
disorders were doubly potent. Drinking water from some of the 
streams gave diarrhea to 99 per cent of the men. 8 Beside exposure, 
the mental strain of business life told on minds, as the insane 
asylums of the early years will bear abundant evidence. 9 

Character of the Miner. — Certain virtues and vices seem to have 
been begotten or nourished by the conditions in gold mining camps, 
or by the influence emanating from them. Self reliance developed 
(a) because anyone could succeed without a superior, and no one 
could afford to hire help; (b) because one had no time to help 
another so long as the latter could help himself. Balancing this 
independence, a fraternal spirit appeared, especially in the beginnings 
in the several fields ; partly because of the isolation from home and 
the East ; partly because of dependence for society and for sympathy 
upon neighbors. This spirit brought together men differing greatly 
in birth, education, and tastes, and welded them into something of a 
guild, a kind of free-masonry. 10 

Friendships and personal attachments sprang up between men of 
very different temperament and culture, because the conditions re- 
quired that they work together, and gave them a community of 

7 Bancroft, H. H., "Hist, of Calif.," Vol. VI, pp. 11&-119. 
8 Taylor, B., "Eldorado" (1857), pp. 206-7, 262-3. 
9 Royce, Josiah, "California," Am. Commonwealth Series, pp. 392-3- 
10 Shinn, C. H., "Mining Camps," pp. 133-290; Barry, T. A., and Patten, 
B. A., "San Francisco in the Spring of 1850" (1873), P- 8. 

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39 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

interest and risk. Men who crossed the land or the sea in company 
and worked in a gulch together held reunions along the Pacific Coast 
for many years. There was a cordiality peculiar to the conditions, 
a jovial fellowship which developed at the expense of ordinary 
forms of courtesy. 11 

Gambling, drunkenness and improvidence were the greatest vices 
of the miners. Placer mining itself was, and is yet, a very good 
game of chance. It gave all the excitement of the game with the 
charm of the wilderness, and often added the novelty of a solitary 
independent game. 12 It brought familiarity with chance and created 
a desire to tempt luck. In the placer stages, gambling was mainly 
by means of games during the evening. It became very intense. 
The gold had come easily, and there was plenty more where it came 
from. Isolation from home and relatives weakened restraint ; even- 
ings were dull, and amusements lacking; therefore almost every- 
one played. When the veins began to be worked, the mining stocks 
and corporations appeared, speculation in part replaced the gaming 
table. Clerks and laborers as well as merchants and other business 
and mining men whose daily occupations were, at best, dangerously 
near gambling, and whose nerves were constantly tormented by 
unnatural yet, for the time, inevitable excitement and strain, entered 
into the sport fully as fast as their means warranted. Wildest 
speculation occurred, and individual as well as social disaster fol- 
lowed, even to the confusion of bankers and conservative Eastern- 
ers. 13 Gambling and speculation were not peculiar to the gold and 
silver mining industry; but they found therein fertile soil, because 
of the easy money at hand, the general excitement, the distance from 
relatives, lack of restraint, the hustle and self-absorption, and the 
intense desire to get rich. Cope 14 calls attention to the waning of 
the spirit of speculation throughout the West because of the great 
changes since 1849 m tne mining business. The large concern, with 
its capital invested in a fixed and elaborate plant, its ores of all 
grades, and its many mines consolidated under one immense organi- 
zation, has much less to run chances upon. At present, mining and 

"Taylor, B., "Eldorado," pp. 310 f. 

M -Patterson, R. H., "The New Golden Age" (1882), Vol. I, p. 253. 

13 Royce, Josiah, "California," pp. 391-3. 

14 World Today, Vol. VIII, 1905, p. 181. 

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George D. Hubbard. 40 

extraction partake largely of the nature of a manufacturing enter- 
prise. 

Although drinking and drunkenness are very common, it is 
doubtful if they are more so than in other kinds of mining, or 
even in old settled and established communities. The predominance 
of men, the excitement and freedom, the abundance of wealth, and 
the social good feeling, which have been characteristics of gold 
mining districts all through the West since 1849, tend to foster this 
evil. The lack of restraint and the failure of the civil, social and 
religious organization to keep pace with the rapid development under 
the stimulus of the precious metals, make for lawlessness and 
liberty-taking, so that indirectly gold and silver share the responsi- 
bility. But a counter quality was developed in the mining districts. 
Great popular interest in civic order was taken by the mining and 
other population, because no superior organization dispensed that 
article; and order and security of property were much better than 
would be expected, considering the sources and heterogeneity of the 
people and the conditions under which they were living. 15 

Extravagance and its offspring, improvidence, were as natural 
fruits as the conditions ever produced. First, almost nothing could 
be had for ordinary prices ; and, since one must pay exorbitantly, he 
felt that he might as well purchase anything that his pile could 
compass. Second, those who had gold, had come by it easily and 
expected to get much more before going home. Third, there was 
the novelty of paying ten prices for an article instead of one, coupled 
with the ease with which it could be accomplished. Men did not 
realize in those flush times and strange surroundings, the real cost 
of things. A few, unused to labor, whose daily ounce or two seemed 
a poor recompense for weary limb, sore muscles and flagging 
spirits, carefully hoarded their gains ; but those whose lives had been 
mostly of work and privation (by far the larger per cent, of the 
miners) were open-handed. Impulse and whim had free rein. Men 
accustomed to no luxuries beyond a good beef steak and a glass of 
whiskey, now dined on tongue and lobster and drank ten dollar 
champagne. Oregonians were said to surpass all others in dietary 
extravagance. 16 Yet there were men of culture in many lines who 

15 Taylor, B., loc. cit., pp. 101, 310-14; Shinn, C. H., loc. cit., p. 287. 
"Taylor, B., loc. cit., pp. 254-7; Shinn, C. H., loc. cit., p. 139. 

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41 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

were careful, provident and regular, unscathed by the violent tempta- 
tions to recklessness. 

The influence of gold when taken from the natives or mined by 
oppressive slavery in Mexico and South America, seems to have 
had quite an opposite effect. There, avarice and greed developed 
enormously ; but in the United States, where every man was his own 
miner, and had to lift the treasure by his own strength or skill, 
these qualities seem not to have taken root. 

In any study of the personal character of the miners of the West, 
it is necessary to take into account the liberal variety of men upon 
whom the influence of the precious metals, with other factors, had 
to work. The miner came from the North, the South, the East and 
West, from Europe, Asia and Latin America, from home and from 
prison, from farm and town, shop and ship ; he was raw or cul- 
tured, ignorant or educated, boisterous or gentle, stupid or alert, red, 
blonde or brunette. All types were cast together with their multi- 
tudinous personal differences. Some of these initial qualities were 
lost, some were transformed, developed or dwarfed, and new or 
dormant qualities were brought out. Some of the changes were 
due to change of environment; some due to the frontier nature of 
the region ; some directly due to the influence of gold and silver, and 
some indirectly traceable thereto. And from it all, there developed 
a species — the typical Western miner; a variety — the prospector; 
and in general, a social character, and a basis for the present tone 
and character of the citizen and of society in our mountainous 
Western States. 

Following a well-recognized law — man is the product of his own 
environment into the condensed and crystallized effects of all en- 
vironments previously occupied by himself and his race — one would 
not expect all who have had contact with the production of the 
precious metals to be alike, but he might feel confident that they 
would have certain common well-marked characteristics — a common 
factor. After reading many character sketches, descriptions of 
camp and western life, and estimates of men and society in the 
West, the following summary has been made, 17 embracing some of 
the personal characteristics of miners. 

17 Besides books mentioned in other references in this paper Bret Hartes' 
stories and poems of western life were examined ; also works of Joachin 
Miller, Josiah Royce, and J. D. Whitney and others. 

(4i) 



George D. Hubbard. 42 

1. Hardy; because selected and hardened in a severe life, out of 
doors, subject to weather and privation. 

2. Generous; because right at hand were the means, also the 
opportunity to share, and many chances that he too would soon need 
another's aid. 

3. Careless and reckless ; because of the chances constantly run 
for success or failure, because of association with other gold-cul- 
tivated reckless characters, because of the distance from home and 
lack of family ties, and because of general excitement. 

4. Happy and hopeful; because of excitement, many chances of 
success, constantly hearing of others' good fortune, and necessity of 
outdoor life. 

5. Brave, because only the stronger spirits started, and these were 
sorted again en route and yet again continuously in the gulches; 
because of isolation and vicious associates with no defence save his 
own. 

6. Self reliant ; because of ease of success without aid. No one 
had time to seek or give counsel or assistance unless needed. 

7. Exuberant with life and push ; because mostly men, young and 
selected, successful, hopeful, and in new untried conditions. 

8. Resourceful ; because driven to it by circumstances. De- 
vices must be made, and experiments conducted to find best adapted 
machines and methods. 

9. Orderly, and loyal to order ; because under the conditions he 
could have no order unless he helped to make it; and it must be had, 
if at all possible. He demanded fair play; honest himself, and 
exacting justice and honesty in others. 

10. Impetuous and hasty; manifested in duels, trials and execu- 
tions, and in snappy decisions on courses of action. In the former 
cases, a delay meant an escaped offender. There were no prisons 
and no time to stand guard. In the latter case quick decisions 
brought best results. 

11. Aptitude and adaptability; power to adjust and to grasp 
opportunities. This quality was specially nurtured in the mining 
camps because of their evanescent nature and the constantly chang- 
ing conditions and associations. It developed in individuals by 
virtue of a natural selection process. He who adjusted himself 
to new conditions had a much better chance of success. 

Rarely do wholly new traits of character seem to have developed, 

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43 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

but abnormal growths of certain qualities and dwarfing of others, 
thus producing an unsymmetrical character are common. 18 Ele- 
ments of character most unlooked for would spring up in a man 
and come to fruition, before his acquaintances or friends were 
aware even of their existence. Men would indulge in dangerous or 
frivolous excesses, when they had formerly been temperate. They 
would be greatly given to drink, generosity, talkativeness, and jest- 
ing. Taylor considers these excrescences, " rank wild shoots slightly 
weakening the trunk, but signs of the abundant life." 

The Speculator. — One or two special types of character and 
occupation deserve special mention at this point. When stocks and 
companies came into vogue, and men cared more for speculation in 
stocks and properties than in gambling machines ; the speculator 
evolved from the proprietor of the gaming table, or he developed 
from a miner who saw riches in the enthusiasm of his fellows. He 
is a product of the printing press and the credulous gold seeker. 
His whole business in this connection has to do with gold mines, 
real or fictitious, and with a quality in men called forth or developed 
under the influence of gold. He booms a mine, sells properties or 
company shares, and pockets the proceeds, leaving beautifully en- 
graved certificates in the hands of his purchasers. He is the 
eloquent advertiser of modern times; one who induces others to 
speculate in gold mines, which have little value outside their Broad- 
way offices and embossed certificates. 19 

The Prospector. — The prospector is undoubtedly the most typical 
human product of the whole gold and silver mining business. Men 
rarely began mining with the expectation of becoming professionals, 
but many of the more adventurous found themselves, at the end 
of a year or two, well within the meshes of the web, and then, 
unconsciously perhaps, surrendered themselves to the lot of a 
prospector. 20 

Equipped with shovel and pan, blanket, skillet, matches, a gun 
and a knife or two, far too careless of food and personal comfort, 
utterly oblivious to vicissitudes of the elements, beyond the ken of 
man for months, roved the adventurous, restless, professional 
prospector, dreaming at night of nuggets and heaps of gold, and 

18 Taylor, B., loc. cit., pp. 254-57, 310 f. 

19 World Today, Vol. VIII (1905), P- i/9- 

20 Patterson, R. H., loc. cit., Vol. I, pp. 239, 253-4. 

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George D. Hubbard. 44 

burning all day with a thirst for gold which gold only quickened and 
never quenched. He lived on wild game, berries and anything pro- 
curable, paid little attention to health, sought solitude and seclusion, 
was worth his thousands one day and nothing the next, usually a 
keen observer, grizzled, poorly clad, brave, hardy and careless. 

The prospector was the advance guard of the miner. He wan- 
dered away from the camp, up ravines and over divides, picked at 
the gravel here and there, washing a bit in his shovel or pan, then 
peering in for " color," the measure of his success. Thus he passed 
the snowy mountains, and crossed the burning plains, becoming 
nomadic, moving on unverified report, and circulating news of his 
various finds. Unless the prowling Indian, dysentery or starvation 
accomplished the deed too soon, old age crept in and took him 
unawares, and his wasted body or bleached bones were left to mark 
some lonely gulch or sentry hill. His hoarded dust in leathern bag 
sometimes revealed his business, when regathered by another solitary 
prospector who happened by the deserted wealth. 21 

His type is a minor element in the exploitation and development 
of the West today. He works alone, unguided and, in the main, 
unfollowed, unless in the employ of some great concern where both 
he and the mining expert contribute to the expansion of the enter- 
prise. 22 

Effects on Western Business and Social Life. — Many personal 
qualities of the miners discussed above were so common as to be 
more or less crystallized in society, and others still more universal 
aided in , giving the characteristic tone to western society. Royce 
points out that in the early days there was in California a blindness 
to social duties and an indifference to the rights of certain foreign- 
ers. 23 This latter was noticeable concerning the Mexican " greaser " 
and the Chinaman. The all-absorbing personal ambition to acquire 
gold, and the carelessness, overhastiness and extravagant confidence 
in luck, which seems to be largely gold-born, were certainly in great 
measure accountable for this early lack of the normally very prom- 
inent pioneer characteristics, thrift, sociability, promotion of the 

"Patterson, R. H., loc. cit., Vol. I, p. 245; Bancroft, H. H., "Hist, of 
Calif.," Vol. VI, pp. 385, 390, 39i. 

22 World Today, Vol. VIII (1005), P- 181. 

23 Royce, Josiah, " California," p. 2. 

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45 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

social organization, and affiliation with everyone in the community, 
even though his nationality, or skin, be of different kind. 

Later, men becoming aware of social obligations took up with the 
usual zest and energy the task of building a well-organized, perma- 
nent and progressive society and State. In many parts of the 
West, the first few years witnessed the conditions noted in Cali- 
fornia, and later years have seen a similar change. 

Peculiar business methods grew up and flourished in California 
during the first few years of her Golden Age. Extraordinary 
abundance of metal made it possible to pay all debts punctually, and 
a public spirit unfolded which was opposed to slackness. 24 Men 
were forced to have business confidence in each other. Business 
was transacted on a large scale, and the market was so absolutely 
sure that the ordinary solicitation and attempt to reduce the price 
were almost entirely forgotten. The merchant became indifferent 
as to whether the customer purchased or not; he was sure of a 
speedy sale anyway. And tffe customer bought if he approved the 
price, or really wanted the goods; if not, he went away. Usually 
he paid the price without a word. So flush were the coffers that 
men loaned money without security and many times without even a 
note, suffering little or no loss. 

These general conditions continued for ten years, until business 
began to settle into more secure routine. Then those who continued 
to display the same indifference to purchasers or to loan without 
note and security were forced to the wall. Competition rose; the 
transient regime entirely disappeared; and with its removal many a 
business man, failing to adjust with sufficient alacrity to the new 
conditions, went into bankruptcy. Much of the same results were 
found in Australia during the period of great abundance, and were 
followed by similar subsequent change. 

Beside these abnormalities in trade, many writers mention an 
exuberance in everything, which manifested itself not a little in busi- 
ness and enterprise. Men were possessed of a spirit of hustle, due, 
in part at least, to success and to the bountiful resources and ample 
opportunity. 25 Caution and prudence seem to have been thrown to 
the wind, and yet men prospered. This spirit was propagated 

24 Taylor, B., " Eldorado," pp. 59-60. 

25 Bancroft, H. H., "Hist. Calif.," Vol. VI, p. 225; Taylor, B., "Eldo- 
rado," pp. 310-314. 

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George D. Hubbard. 46 

wherever the new gold went, and there resulted a quickening of 
enterprise, an intensifying of prosperity, an augmented productivity 
until Hume 26 remarks " In every kingdom into which money begins 
to flow in greater abundance than formerly, everything takes on a 
new face. Labor and industry gain life, the merchant becomes more 
enterprising, the manufacturer more diligent and skilful, and even 
the farmer follows his plough with greater alacrity and attention." 27 
Increased gold and silver production seems to be not only a local 
stimulant but a universal industrial tonic, vivifying enterprise as far 
as it goes. 

A characteristic quality of Western society has been its lack of 
rank, its democratic equalization. Taylor predicts that California 
will be the most democratic country in the world. This democracy 
was due to a number of conditions. (1) The richest never came to 
California nor to the other mining regions, and the poorer could not 
come, so the financially determined social range from the start was 
less than in the East. (2) Those who came all worked, worked 
side by side, and at the same or similar occupations. (3) None 
could afford to hire or be hired. (4) Where riches lay so near the 
surface, they conferred little advantage. 

In the course of time, as mining methods have changed, finan- 
cially determined social rank has arisen. There are laborers and 
capitalists in two well-established classes. This distinction could 
not well have come in an agricultural pioneer community. It is 
little known in new countries other than those mining gold. In the 
East, property plays a part in social organization, but position, 
scholarship and culture are stronger factors. It is no wonder, 
however, that in the West and especially in California, many of the 
citizens know no aristocracy save that based on wealth, and that 
by many the clergyman or professor is not to be considered eligible 
to the best society unless backed by his gold. Oregon and Wash- 
ington, less important as mining States, seem to feel this distinction 
less. 

Gold and silver mining brings men closer together physically and 
thus creates links of town-life and society. 28 In spite of the strong 

26 Hume, D., "Political Discoveries," 2d edition, p. 47. 

27 Stirling, P. J., " Gold Discoveries and Their Probable Consequences " 
(1853), PP- 256-7. 

28 Shinn, C. H., loc. cit., p. 227. 

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47 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

individualistic spirit in mining communities, there is a real charity 
and a healthy fraternalism not known or possible in other kinds of 
frontier life. 

The Camp as an Organising Force. — As an organizing force, 
mining-camp society is one of the strongest and quickest to act. 
This has been shown in the case of court organization, and was 
specially marked in the massing of men in orderly concourse to 
discuss and carry into effect district organization. Popular dis- 
cussion was a right of miners, growing as naturally out of their 
environment as did equal mining rights; and assembling with 
startling energy and swiftness for effective consolidation was as 
much to be expected as hasty trial and execution. The miner saw 
the need of order, because he was removed from its protection ; and, 
under the tremendous pressure of local demand for unification of all 
forces, he became bound to his fellows by common interests into a 
social compact owing allegiance to no higher authority. The evolu- 
tion of social community when begun was much more rapid under 
the influence of gold than it could have been among a more staid 
and less mobile populace. 29 

In discussing the characteristics of men in mining regions, Shinn, 
writing in 1884, remarks that they are a class peculiarly ready to 
assemble for free discussion, to have debates, to start arguments and 
to listen to stump speeches. 30 The early training of miners' courts 
and of camp life have left their impress upon the people of the 
mining regions. Compared with the people of the valley engaged 
in other occupations, they bear relations similar to those born by 
Tennessee mountaineers to the valley dwellers of the same vicinity. 
But these mining mountaineers compared with the ordinary moun- 
tain dweller, have a closer organization, a more constant habit of 
seeking each other's counsel, of meeting in assembly, and of openly 
discussing local and general affairs. 

Spread of Camp Spirit. — The mining camp spreads its influence 
with the wanderings of prospector and miner. It was as much a 
unit and centralizing force in the West as the town in New England, 
and the plantation in the South, and fully as much a product of the 
environment. Institutionally, it underlies the Western common- 
wealth; intellectually and socially, it represents a colonial era; but 

29 Shinn, C. H., loc. cit., p. 135; Taylor, B., loc. cit., pp. 310-14. 

30 Shinn, C. H., loc. cit., pp. 226-7. 

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George D. Hubbard. 48 

in both respects, it is a type not found in merely agricultural or 
pastoral development, but belongs to the production of the precious 
metals. Not only has the camp and mining district life given its 
strength, energy and manners to western society, but it has already 
passed as a powerful force into the very fiber of the social fabric 
throughout the western mining States. Men and women trained 
in that atmosphere are in control of the departments of state and 
local government, are leaders in society, and while the whole organi- 
zation of state and society is similar to that in the East, its move- 
ments are quicker, its pulse healthier, and its jurisprudence more 
primitive, its spirit of unity stronger and tone more democratic. 

Oregon has the name both at home and among its neighbors of 
being the least progressive of all the coast states, although it was one 
of the earliest occupied, having its permanent settlements before the 
California gold discoveries. May this not be in large measure due 
to its lack of gold and silver mining and of contact with mining life? 
A comparison of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco is also strik- 
ing. We have seen the character of the latter. Seattle is said by 
travellers to resemble Chicago in its hustle and push. Portland is 
much less active. It is an agricultural market but has little contact 
with gold mining, while Seattle has, besides agricultural and lumber 
marketing, an extensive business in outfitting Alaskan and Klondyke 
miners. 

Effects on Other Institutions. — In the beginnings of the develop- 
ment of the various districts, certain institutions were slow of 
growth because neglected for the Western summum bonum — gold. 
Perhaps the slowest was the church and with it religious life. All 
writers pay a tribute to the miners when they speak of their rever- 
ence for religion, their emotions and responses in cases of births and 
natural deaths. Probably much of this feeling toward spiritual 
things was due to the scarcity of church and religious influence, 
which in turn was a product of the conditions. Certain institutions 
must reach a community last, and these will be determined by the 
relative importance attached to them by the members of each com- 
munity. Naturally, where the material interests were so clamorous 
for attention, their importance was magnified to the detriment of 
the spiritual. 

It is also common testimony that the Westerner today has a very 
high regard for and interest in the church, religion and education. 

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49 Influence of Gold and Silver Mining upon Characters. 

Probably this is a development of the earlier feelings, coupled with 
an increased desire to have for his youth what the exigencies of the 
times forbade him to enjoy. 

On Literature. — Books, articles and stories in considerable num- 
bers have sprung from the Western conditions, but as yet there is 
little that can take rank as literature. A swarm of little, cheap, and 
often loud books by persons who had spent "three weeks " to "six 
months " in the gulches came up as spontaneously as mushrooms 
after a June shower. 

The scientific literature is no small item. Thousands of pages 
along many lines, geologic, petrographic, chemical, mining and engi- 
neering have been published in books and journals. Many volumes 
of more or less technical reports annually appear. Much of the 
western fiction is gold inspired. In the gulches was found not only 
the pioneer conditions attractive to all readers but also a romantic, 
novel background set with gold nuggets, pious gamblers, forgotten 
forty-niners, tricky Mexicans, Indian outlaws and rescued innocents, 
all possible and all thrilling. A thousand stories such as those by 
Bret Harte illustrate the spirit of the times. Cincinnatus H. Miller 
(Joaquin Miller) in his poems has depicted the mountain scenery, 
open-air life, and freedom, often lawless, of mining days ; and other 
lesser men have written, yet the total is but meager. 

The ,great mining West has a treasure house brimful in her 
romance and history; an inspiration in her scenery for the outdoor 
poet ; a theme for the dramatist in the vivid life scenes of the over- 
land routes, her mining camps and forests ; a sublime symphony for 
the deft fingers of the artist to express in music of poetry, song, 
or story : 

The masters of these themes will be products of the environ- 
ment. They will grow up in the grandeur and vastness of those 
majestic mountains and profound valleys, opened to the world by 
the far-reaching influence of the metallic treasure in their hearts 
and mantles. Men of spirit and strength have already written, but 
the best from this virile, exuberant and cosmopolitan people, in a 
new and varied country, is yet to come. 

The Commingling of Races. — As already shown, under the influ- 
ence of gold and silver there were drawn to the West and especially 
to California, all nationalities and conditions of society. The mass 
of population was most heterogeneous and unpropitious, yet there 

(49) 



George D. Hubbard. 50 

" is growing up " says Taylor, " harmony beyond the most sanguine 
hopes." 31 This resultant, save some very local foreign examples, the 
most cosmopolitan of all societies, was not alone due to the variety 
of its ingredients. Commingling races and interbedding social 
strata, coupled with primitive and similar modes of life for all ; the 
most perfect mixing process carried on by means of characteristic 
rushes ; the common risk and responsibility, have all collaborated to 
produce the finished product — Western cosmopolitan society. Much 
of the virility and enterprise in California is a consequence of the 
complexity of population and its complete mixing. And by the same 
means, the citizens, facing the awakening Orient, were prepared to 
enter broad world relations. 

World-zvide Results. — There were broader social effects, re- 
sponses to the influence of gold and silver in the Far West. The 
gold seeker's emigration from all the world was socially a disturb- 
ing influence touching the spirit of the times in many lands. The 
discoveries and exploitation of treasure called forth hordes from 
quiet, steady civilizations, relieving congestion, quickening markets 
and reviving life, thought and action. There was a loss from many 
lands and communities of capital and strong arms, to a new, wild, 
and untried country. 

Society in the aggregate suffered by loss of moral restraint in- 
cident on mining life, and the consequent vice, crime and bloodshed, 
gambling and thriftlessness, and the partial loss of mental equi- 
librium. And so the subtle influence of a very potent element goes 
on permeating, enthusing, restraining, inducing, discouraging and 
cheering, and all the time preparing the way for speedy emergence 
of the Great West in its strength and integrity. 

31 Taylor, B., " Eldorado," pp. 101 f. 



(50) 



THE JOTTRJNTAL OF 
GEOGRAPHY 

Volume X JUNE, 1912 Number 10 

THE PRECIOUS METALS AS A GEOGRAPHIC FACTOR IN THE 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES* 

A Summary by GEORGE D. HUBBARD, 
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 

IN the preparation of this dissertation, the purpose has been to set forth 
the evidence and the extent of the geographic influence of the precious 
metals in the development of the United States. If undue emphasis has 
seemingly been given to the geographic influences, it may be simply because 
all other classes of influences and their effects have been disregarded for the 
time. This lack of attention to economic, social and other forces has not 
been through a lack of appreciation of their importance or a desire to de- 
tract from their interest, but because of the purpose to make clear and to 
emphasize the influence of gold and silver growing out of their geographic 
distribution and geographic associations and relations. 

Care has been taken to pursue the investigation along each line as far 
as the evidence will allow; and caution has been used to prevent drawing 
unwarranted conclusions. The facts that various other causes produce simi- 
lar results, and that several causes operate together to bring about a single 
result have often complicated the problem. After certain results have been 
noted, an examination of other classes of influence — economic, social, re- 
ligious, historic, and racial — has been made to determine which cause has 
been effective, or which should be considered more important. Occasional- 
ly, in testing the power of the influence of any set of conditions, or the de- 
gree of the responses to them, it has been found helpful to suppose changed 
conditions, and note results. This device cannot be considered final, because 
one is never sure what would happen under hypothetical conditions ; nor can 
he be certain that he has taken cognizance of all conditions. 

*Under this general title there have appeared a series of articles dealing 
with several phases of the question. Together they constitute the thesis pre- 
sented by the author to Cornell University for the degree of Doctor of Philoso- 
phy. The papers may be found as follows: 

Scott. Geog. Mag. Vol. XXVI (1910) pp. 449-466. 

Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc. Vol. XLII (1910) pp. 594-602. 

Scott. Geog. Mag. Vol. XXVII (1911) pp. 417-26, 470-74. 

Bull. Phil. Geog. Soc. Vol. IX (1911) pp. 1-22. 

Bull. Phil. Geog. Soc. Vol. X (1912) pp. 36-50. 

Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc. Vol. XLIV (1912) pp. 97-112. 






in the distributing and quickening influences of the miner's emigration, in 
the loss to society of strength and restraint incident on mining life, and 
in the enlargement of knowledge and extension of vision felt in every 
nation of the earth permeated by the subtle influence of the precious 
metals. 










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